Whistleblowers describe culture of racism, abuse and cover-ups at Florida prison
Yes, and it is the same in prisons all over America. READ Culture of Cover Up
Only when the abusers are prosecuted and imprisoned will they get the message: they must obey the law. READ How to avoid the deaths of prison guards and inmates
Excerpts from the Article:
One former Panhandle prison employee said she filed a written complaint about a correctional officer’s racist behavior, then came into work several days later to another officer dangling a noose made of toilet paper in front of her. Another former employee said she walked in on a handcuffed inmate being beaten in the medical unit, surrounded by a group of officers. She was suspended one day after filing an incident report about it, and fired within two weeks.
Though both of those employees are now gone, they aren’t alone.
In interviews with the Times-Union, a dozen former and current employees at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution described a culture of abuse, bullying, racism and administrative cover-ups in the mental health dorms. Officers selected inmates they had problems with for unsanctioned forms of punishment: to include physical violence or withholding their food to the point where prisoners lost considerable weight, employees said.
“It frustrates us and makes us angry every time this happens and we report it and these officers are still there working,” said Betty Young, a former activities technician. “They won’t fire them because they’re so short on staff, and they keep them.”
Several employees complained all the way to the top — Warden Walker Clemmons.
The Times-Union isn’t identifying any current employees, who expressed fears of retaliation. It is naming two former employees and used records to corroborate many of the claims.
The facility has a capacity of some 2,600 inmates but housed more than 3,300 prisoners from across the state as of the last audit in February 2015. It’s unclear how many of those are from Northeast Florida.
The Office of Inspector General is reviewing and investigating the allegations, the department added. Glady said the institution had a “track record of ensuring that any individuals involved in misconduct are held fully accountable.”
Ronald Thornton was one week away from his release date, serving a four-year sentence for cocaine possession, when correctional officers called him out from his cell. Thornton, a black man, had been fighting with several correctional officers who he said used racist language toward him. He had already been badly beaten once before, to the point where his eyes were swollen shut, according to multiple sources at the prison. But Thornton wasn’t staying quiet. He continued to call out officers for racist behavior. On April 9, one month ago, a couple of officers told Thornton they had a going-away present for him, he said — then they told him he had to take a tuberculosis test. The men led Thornton to the medical unit in handcuffs. It’s one of the few areas in the facility that has no cameras, according to several employees.
“They closed the door and put their gloves on and said, ‘You know what time it is,’” Thornton told the Times-Union. “Then they started hitting me.” Thornton identified Sgt. Lee Peacock Jr. as one officer who beat him, but could not name others. He said violence against inmates was rampant in the prison. The Department of Corrections would not say whether Peacock was under investigation but confirmed that he is still an active employee there.
Young, the former activities therapist at the prison, heard what she described as grunting in the midst of Thornton’s beating, and forced her way into the medical office. One officer whistled out a warning, she said, and when she arrived she saw several officers and some nurses were trying to shield Thornton from her view. Young said Thornton leaned away from an officer and looked to her, and she was able to see evidence of physical injury to his face.
Young, who said she had knowledge of Thornton being beaten up once before, said she called out in surprise at the officers that they were beating Thornton again. The officers simply stared at her and said nothing in response, Young said. She went directly to her supervisor to report the incident, she added.
That same day, Young wrote a report about the beating. She identified Peacock and other officers as being in the medical unit surrounding Thornton when she entered. The incident report would be her last. Young was suspended the day after she filed it, then terminated a week and a half later, she said.
Officers regularly coerced inmates in the mental health unit by withholding or ruining their food, according to a dozen former and current employees.
Because inmates at the mental health unit are kept in one-man cells, officers deliver trays directly to them. But sometimes, the officers served “air trays” or “ghost trays,” the employees said. The trays have a lid on top, so they appear to be full on video, but contain no food, they said, adding that officers will also position cups of juice to spill into the tray and soak the meal.
Employees said officers used the trays for coercion or retaliation. For instance, Thornton said that after his beating, an officer came up to the back of his cell, off camera, and told him to file an incident report saying he fell. The officers threatened him with ghost trays, he added. Several current employees and former employees said officers commonly withheld food to get inmates to change their stories for investigations into abuse or to concoct fictional narratives that would cover up the wrongdoing of an officer.
Employees who attended the meeting described it as “punitive” and felt the administration was more upset that they had reported the abuses than they were disturbed about the misconduct by officers.
The Department of Corrections faces wrongful death lawsuits not uncommonly, including those that raise questions about deaths that were ruled as suicides by the department’s Office of Inspector General.
Prison workers accused of harassing woman at park in Glasgow – NO surprise! – kra
Nothing particularly noteworthy about 4 people harassing someone in a park. What is noteworthy is that these S O Bs were law enforcement officers. I say S O Bs because, although the others are not named, Warden Carole Evens is a well-known abuser of inmates who tolerates much abuse on her watch! Also worth noting are the lies told by the D O C spokesperson, and the police officer’s head in the sand, refusing to arrest the bastards.
As long as these fools can act the way they do, without consequence, they will continue to violate the law.
Excerpts from the Article:
Delaware prison officials are investigating allegations that a group of correctional employees including a warden verbally and physically harassed a woman overseeing a group of preschool children during a park outing. The May 10 incident involved a dispute over parking at Glasgow Park in northern Delaware, where the prison employees were having a barbecue to celebrate National Correctional Officer Appreciation Week.
Amanda Hobson said the Department of Correction employees, including Warden Carole Evans, targeted her with vulgar language and an obscene gesture in front of the preschoolers because the prison officials thought they were entitled to the parking space she was using.
Hobson, owner of Imagination Station in Elkton, Maryland, said the prison employees refused to agree to watch the children temporarily so she could move her car. She called police after they then blocked in her car with one of their vehicles and with a grill, preventing her from leaving.
Hobson also said the prison officials, three of whom were in uniform, circled her and the children and took photos of them. At one point, Evans spoke into her phone, reciting Hobson’s license plate number and acting like she was directing another person to obtain information on Hobson, she said.
“She repeated my license plate, and then she said, ‘I want her name and information.’ She was purposely saying it loud enough so I could hear her.” Another prison official, meanwhile, called her a vulgar name and gave her the middle finger, Hobson said.
“I was upset, I was crying,” Hobson said. “I had seven kids I was caring for. … They were freaking out.”
Evans, warden of the Plummer Community Corrections Center in Wilmington, declined to speak about the incident Friday, saying DOC officials are not allowed to speak to the media.
A DOC spokeswoman said the “alleged incident” was under investigation and the department could not comment further.
Hobson said that during the incident, a child fell and hit his head hard on the concrete, but that the DOC employees showed no concern and did nothing to help. “They just continued to stand there. They were laughing and making jokes about their grill,” she said.
Hobson said that after she called New Castle County Police, an officer who arrived seemed to side with the prison officials, and at one point spoke privately with Evans. Jason Miller, spokesman for New Castle County, said the officer worked with both parties to resolve the matter. Miller confirmed that the correctional officers had reserved a park pavilion by submitting a permit application and paying a $150 reservation fee. “The group contends this vehicle took up space they were entitled to use for their gathering and they subsequently parked a grill next to the vehicle, which blocked it in,” he said in an email.
Miller noted that county park pavilion reservations do not come with reserved parking spaces. Moreover, the incident occurred on a short access pathway connecting the pavilion and the roadway that is used by maintenance staff and for temporary drop-off access for pavilion users, but is not a designated parking spot.
Miller also said that because the correctional officers brought in an outside grill without prior authorization, in violation of park rules, the county withheld $50 from the group’s security deposit.
Hobson said that as she and the children left the park, one turned to her and said, “Ms. Amanda, I don’t understand. I thought the police were supposed to be the good guys.” “That just broke my heart,” she said.
Jail warden resigns, officer arrested after alleged attack on inmate at Ascension Parish jail
Good for Sheriff Bobby Webre. For w=every one of these situations where the criminal – the abuser – is held accountable, there are 1,000 where the local authorities “let it slide”.
Excerpts from the Article:
An Ascension Parish corrections officer has been fired and criminally charged after a video allegedly captured him using excessive force against an inmate inside the parish jail Tuesday. Sheriff Bobby Webre called the attack “unprovoked” and “an excessive use of force”.
The sheriff says the incident happened as officers were searching the jail for contraband on Tuesday.
The sheriff says a corrections officer, Livingston Alfred, 50, and a jail trustee got into a verbal altercation after which the officer “battered the inmate across his face.” Alfred was charged with simple battery. Webre says the inmate, who was not in handcuffs or otherwise restrained, was sitting on a bench when he was attacked.
The sheriff said the jail’s warden, David Dykes, and security head Lt. Jeffery Rogillio “expressed disagreement with their supervisors on jail protocols and procedures and handed over their resignations.” Dykes was just promoted to the rank of Major two months ago.
The Use of Solitary Confinement in Virginia Is Inhumane and Unlawful
It is nothing short of outrageous the way prison officials abuse solitary confinement and then ignore Court Orders to correct their policies and practices. What most of these articles do not tell you is that solitary is often used to punish, totally illegally, inmates who speak out about the many abuses, as they did with me, keeping me in isolation for 1,510 days, when I should not have been in prison at all for those 4 years! READ It’s not about What They Did to Me -Prison Abuse – My Mission
The only solution to this is to PROSECUTE the abusers! READ why here: Why only PROSECUTION and IMPRISONMENT Will Stop Prison Abuse and Police Abuse! Demand It!! How to Avoid the Deaths of More Prison Guards!
Excerpts from the Article:
William Thorpe has spent nearly 24 straight years in solitary confinement in Virginia prisons stuck in a cell about half of the size of a parking space for more than 22 hours a day, every day, with no outside light and almost no human contact.
In his nearly two and a half decades in solitary, Thorpe has seen changes in leadership at the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) and attempts to reform how solitary confinement is used in our state prisons.
The most recent, change to VDOC’s solitary practices was creation in 2011 of its so-called Segregation Reduction Step-Down Program. This program is a behavior modification system VDOC officials have repeatedly touted as an evidence-based approach to corrections that provides a pathway out of solitary for those who follow the program’s rules. But for Thorpe and others, there is nothing new or special about the program. Instead, it’s a resurrection of a failed strategy that was discredited and discarded 35 years ago at another now-closed Virginia prison. Built in 1977, the Mecklenburg Correctional Center was a maximum-security prison supposedly built to house the most dangerous, disruptive people held in solitary confinement by VDOC under close supervision with minimal privileges.
But when it came time to fill the prison’s 360 beds, VDOC found there weren’t enough people in Virginia who were such a security risk that they needed the kind of restrictive supervision Mecklenburg provided. A 1984 state Board of Corrections investigation revealed VDOC had solved the problem by filling Mecklenburg’s many empty beds using relaxed, inconsistent criteria. VDOC officials even had cold-called other Virginia prisons seeking referrals to keep Mecklenburg full so they could justify its massive operating costs.
As a result of a class-action lawsuit brought in 1981 by the ACLU’s National Prison Project, VDOC agreed in 1985 to end the SMU and the Phase Program, and not reinstate similar programs in the future. The lawsuit alleged unconstitutional conditions at Mecklenburg that the Phase Program worsened by allowing arbitrary, indefinite placement of people in solitary.
In 2011, VDOC started the so-called Step-Down Program, which is disturbingly similar in purpose and practice to the old Phase Program, and is yielding similar results: An endless maze of classifications, vague and confusing processes, and highly subjective decision-making authority granted to VDOC staff effectively make it impossible for many people to be released from solitary, ever.
Today, the ACLU of Virginia and global law firm White & Case LLP, filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of Thorpe and other people who have been held in solitary confinement at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge.
The lawsuit alleges the Step-Down Program has been used in much the same way as the failed Phase Program: to fill underused prisons and justify the exorbitant costs of keeping them open. Although numerous studies have shown solitary can cause psychological and physical damage in as few as 10 days, VDOC has remained deliberately indifferent to the permanent harm it is inflicting. The ACLU of Virginia’s report on solitary confinement in our state prisons – Silent Injustice – shed much light on the human toll of this practice.
VDOC’s use of solitary has been carried out with blatant disregard for the Mecklenburg settlement agreement, violating a variety of constitutional and statutory rights of incarcerated people at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge. This includes their right to due process, equal protection, and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, as well as their right to accommodations under federal disability statutes.
On behalf of William Thorpe and every person VDOC has harmed in this way, we have sued to end the Step-Down Program and close the solitary units at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge. VDOC must be held accountable and forced to stop enacting these inhumane practices.
Prison contractor falsified records to conceal inadequate addiction treatment, sources say – No Surprise to Me! – With Letter to Editor – kra
This kind of behavior is exactly what I saw and have been complaining about for years. The f#%@#$g contractors submit a program which looks good on paper, get the deal, worth tens of millions of dollars, and then do damn near nothing. I SAW it, day in and day out.
Like so many good articles, this one is lengthy. For many more examples, and a better understanding of the depth of the fraud, click on The Whole Story.
I am sending this article to several key officials, like the A G and the Lt Governor and the Governor, and the U S Attorney, asking: “Why are these crooks not prosecuted?!” But I have done that before and heads remain in the sand, reluctant to admit that the system is so out of control.
Excerpts from the Article:
Maranda Cekmecelioglu really could have benefited from some therapy. The 28-year-old was sent to prison on drug-related charges and had just lost her father and brother within 11 months in 2017. The court ordered counseling for her through Crest, a taxpayer-funded program designed to help drug offenders with addiction and behavioral health issues.
But Cekmecelioglu, who goes by “Cek,” said she didn’t get any help at Crest South, which is run by Connections Community Support Programs in Georgetown. Documents Cek shared with The News Journal indicate she received two treatment plans, and presumably counseling, on November 28 and December 28. But the records are a lie, Cek said. In over three months there, Cek said she didn’t get any one-on-one counseling. She said she received both treatment plans in January 2018 right before she was discharged. The plans, Cek said, were made up and backdated.
“I never had any actual formal counseling,” she said. “It was just like: How are you? This is your treatment plan. I need you to sign these papers.” Cek is not alone. A News Journal investigation found Connections has failed to provide adequate addiction treatment for female inmates at Crest South.
The investigation, based on interviews with 22 former employees and program participants as well as email conversations, also found that in dozens of cases, the program falsified patient records.
Four former Connections employees at Crest South told The News Journal they have direct knowledge that counselors fabricated notes of therapy sessions that never occurred, made up vague treatment plans to correspond with them and backdated records to appear as if Connections was providing monthly counseling.
Three former employees also said Connections counselors inflated the length of counseling sessions in patient records (10 minutes could become 45 on paper, one source said).
“I don’t think we need a Ph.D. in moral philosophy for this one,” said Dominic Sisti, assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “This is obvious fraud if the allegations prove to be true.”
‘Last year, Delaware hit the highest death toll for drug overdoses it has seen since it began tracking them: 400 people. A report commissioned by the attorney general’s office estimated there are over 11,000 Delawareans who have a substance use disorder. And 46 percent of Delaware prisoners – roughly 6,300 people – struggle with substance use, according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Connections, which receives more than $15 million a year for its mental health and substance abuse services for Delaware inmates, disputes the claims of record falsification. The organization said it is not required to provide monthly counseling sessions but strived to do so anyway.
Shannon Lasek, a former substance abuse counselor at Crest South, said she knows firsthand that Connections falsified records because she did it herself. In November 2018, she said her bosses explicitly instructed her to “catch up” the empty files of inmates who were about to be released from the program and hadn’t received treatment. Over several interviews, Lasek described making up and backdating at least 30 fake counseling sessions and generic treatment plans for inmates, some of whom she’d never spoken to.
Lasek said she quit in mid-December because she couldn’t do it anymore. “I had to pretty much create a program that didn’t happen,” Lasek said.
But emails obtained by The News Journal between a former employee and the employee’s superiors show the program was struggling with a months-long backlog. In one email, the supervisor directs the subordinate to create a treatment plan for a patient over a month after it was supposed to be completed. The News Journal is not publishing the emails to protect the source who fears retaliation.
In separate interviews over several weeks, 12 former inmates who completed the program in the last four years said they did not receive any individual counseling whatsoever. Three others recalled having one session, and two others remembered having multiple sessions — but all of them said those sessions lasted about 10 minutes or less.
Of those 17 people, five said counselors gave them backdated, cookie cutter treatment plans and instructed the clients to sign them. Many referred to the program as “a joke.”
“I was told so many times: You’re not going to win,” she said. “Connections is big and powerful.” Lasek said it was difficult for her to speak out about what she experienced, including her personal actions, because Connections has a stake in so much of Delaware’s healthcare industry.
“Connections owns everything,” she said. “They’ve monopolized this entire state.”
She worries about how whistleblowing will affect her career, she said, but she felt it was the right thing to do.
“I’m talking because addicts are people who deserve the treatment they were sent to,” she said.
On Tuesday, Connections said Crest South staff is currently undergoing “retraining sessions” to ensure staff members know and understand policies.
Former Crest South participant O’Connor said people shouldn’t be left with the impression that the program didn’t have any success stories. There were some. “But it wasn’t because of the program. It was in spite of the program,” she said.
“The whole state of Delaware is lacking addiction treatment. It’s sad that this is what we’re offering people at their lowest and expecting them to change because of it. As a state and as a prison system, if you’re truly trying to rehabilitate people and make them productive members of society, the treatment needs to be actual treatment.”
Letter to the Editor – It’s called Fraud and Theft! – 5/13/19
I read with interest the recent article about employees of the prison contractor, Connections, falsifying records concerning patients’ treatment. This kind of behavior is exactly what I saw when I was incarcerated more than 10 years ago, in the same so-called program, “Crest”, and I have been complaining about it for years. The criminal contractors submit a program which looks good on paper, get the deal, worth tens of millions of dollars, and then do damn near nothing. They are brazen in their abuse of the system, because they think that because the victims are “just prisoners” nobody will care. Well, the victims are the public too; it is your money wasted, and you suffer the crimes committed when these “treatment programs” fail!
I SAW it, day in and day out.
The depth of the fraud related in the new article is outrageous. Supervisors and staff lie like crazy and falsify records. There are numerous crimes here,(conspiracy, fraud, theft, and more) and what I have asked before, and want to know again, is “why are the perpetrators not prosecuted?”. Where are the Attorney General and/or the U S Attorney for Delaware, in the face of such extensive evidence? Do they not want to acknowledge that the system is so out of control? Until they take the action required – vigorous prosecution – this conduct will continue, costing YOU, the taxpayer, millions of dollars, failing the people these programs are supposed to benefit, and increasing the public’s skepticism about and lack of faith in government officials.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
……………..
I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others.
THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO REACH THOUSANDS OF READERS!
The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.
Do what works: Write that Letter!…………Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses).
Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067!
GOOGLE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR” FOR THE TOP TEN NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR STATE AND SAVE THAT INFORMATION FOR REPEATED USE – Some papers will print a letter from you every 2 weeks, some every 30 days, some every 90 days. They have varying policies. But if you really want to make a difference shoot them a new letter once a month!
I send one out every 2 weeks.
Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer?
NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME AT 302-423-4067.
Federal Bureau of Prisons Elects Not to Renew Contract at the Adams County Correctional Center
This is a little bit of good news in the world of private prisons. CoreCivic Inc. is a total disaster for the inmates they “serve”! They are notorious for their abuse and neglect of inmates.
I have omitted most of their self-serving totally false comments from this article. You can read them by opening The Whole Story. It’s bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit, as all prison reform advocates know all too well.
CCA changed it’s name to CoreCivic, to try to outlive its terrible reputation.
Excerpts from the Article:
CoreCivic, Inc. (NYSE: CXW) (the “Company”) announced today that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) elected not to renew its contract at CoreCivic’s owned and operated 2,232-bed Adams County Correctional Center. For the year ended December 31, 2018, the facility generated approximately $60.9 million in revenue from the BOP.
At this time, the BOP has not determined when it will begin transferring inmates out of the facility, but the current contract expires on July 31, 2019. CoreCivic will begin marketing the facility to other potential government partners as it works with the BOP to develop their transition plan. The Company does not expect this non-renewal to have a material impact on the full year 2019 financial guidance released on February 19, 2019.
Ohio’s Parole Board undergoes sweeping reforms to increase transparency, fairness
Long overdue. Looks good on paper; let’s see if they DO it! I recall posting an article about Board members sleeping through the hearings!
Excerpts from the Article:
The Ohio Parole Board, criticized in recent months for having a secretive and arbitrary decision-making process, will become more open under a long list of reforms announced by Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday.
For the first time, offenders eligible for parole will be allowed to take part in their hearings before the full board, and such meetings will soon be livestreamed online to the public, according to a DeWine release.
In addition, all parole board members will be required to undergo training on legal updates, interviewing skills, and effective communication. State prison agency staff will also receive training “to improve their understanding of the parole hearing process,” according to the release.
Other reforms are aimed at improving the parole board’s decision-making process. Before an inmate’s parole hearing, board members will have to meet with prison agency staff for “first-hand feedback” on the inmate’s conduct and rehabilitation progress. The parole board will also do more to weigh the seriousness of any infractions a potential parolee has on their prison record. Right now, the board treats all infractions the same when considering parole, whether the violations are minor or serious.
Another reform seeks to streamline the parole process in cases where there are no objections to an inmate’s release. Inmates recommended for parole by the board will no longer automatically head to a full board hearing, though a full hearing will still take place if requested by the victim, the victim’s family, victims’ services staff, or the board chair.
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction will create a program to offer volunteer “navigators” to help guide inmates through their parole hearing process. The DRC will also set up a new reentry program to offer parolees appropriate life skills, based on the age of the inmate.
The DeWine administration will recommend legislation to the Ohio General Assembly to strengthen victims’ rights by giving victims access to their offenders’ Institutional Summary Report, which shows the inmate’s disciplinary record as well as his or her participation in activities such as school, job training and treatment. Finally, DRC Director Annette Chambers-Smith announced she has made appointments to fill three of the four open seats on the nine-member board. The appointments include state Rep. Glenn Holmes, a Trumbull County Democrat; Lisa Hoying, an assistant Clark County prosecutor; and Steven Herron, the assistant state public defender for the Ohio Public Defender Commission and president of the Vermilion City Council.
Serving on the Ohio Parole Board is a full-time job that pays $42.19 per hour.
The above policy reforms are expected to be implemented within the coming months, according to the release. Chambers-Smith plans to soon fill the remaining open seat on the parole board with someone with a background in mental health or addiction counseling. In a statement, Chambers-Smith said these changes “are only the beginning.”
The Ohio Parole Board has come under heightened scrutiny since January, when former board member Shirley Smith criticized it as a “secret society” whose decisions were “frighteningly unfair.”
Smith accused board members of, among other things, making decisions on inmates’ futures using inconsistent, biased or racist reasoning, often after missing hearings or being distracted by food or other work. She also noted that the board mostly consists of white ex-parole officers and argued that the board should also include mental-health professionals and current or former lawmakers who can communicate with the legislature about the need for law changes.
‘I don’t want my son dead’: Alabama prison inmates extort families from behind bars
Yet another indication of the needless lawlessness in America’s prisons. The situation, alas, will not improve until enough people speak out. READ Prison Abuse – Why Massive Indifference is a Massive Mistake – kra = http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/prison-abuse-massive-indifference-massive-mistake/
I love this quote: “How do cellphones get in? Through several avenues, ADOC says, including visitors and unsecured perimeters at prisons. Last year, ADOC said it made more than 60 arrests for crimes ranging from smuggling contraband cell phones to drug trafficking.” The truth is that 90% of ALL prison contraband is brought in by the guards!
Excerpts from the Article:
Linda Donahoo says she occasionally gets phone calls from inmates at Easterling Correctional Facility in Barbour County. That’s where her son Shannon is imprisoned. The phone calls are simple: Send money, or your son could die.
She says she sent $300 last time. She’s sent larger sums over the years – $400, $500. The money is sent through Green Dot, Pay Pal, Western Union or Walmart cards. She reports the calls, she says, to the Alabama Department of Corrections and to federal authorities.
Donahoo’s story of extortion is similar to those found during an extensive two-and-a-half-year federal investigation of Alabama prisons, released this month by the U.S. Department of Justice. “Alabama’s inability to prevent and address the extortion of prisoners and prisoners’ family members leads to a substantial risk of serious harm,” the report stated. The federal findings provided seven examples, along with screenshots of texts with threats, painting a picture of criminals behind bars able to extend influence on innocent relatives beyond the walls.
“They say, don’t pay it,” she said. “I said, ‘I don’t want my son dead over money.’ I’ve spent nearly everything I’ve got trying to keep him alive, any time he’s out in population.”
Shannon Donahoo, 46, has been in Alabama’s prisons for 26 years following a murder conviction in Talladega County. Housed in Easterling, he is a four-hour car trip from his mother’s home in Pell City. Linda, 72, can no longer make the journey because of her vision, affected by cataracts. In addition to the extortion threats, she regularly pays money for debts her son may incur behind bars. But the extortion calls are the worst.
“They’ve been standing over him, fixing to kill him, sometimes when they call,” she said. “It’s horrible. It’s because he’s on drugs. But it’s happened in different prisons. I never know who it is.” She says the calls began more than 15 years ago, at different prisons, but with the same threats of violence and death.
Linda has documented her son’s time in prison, writing letters on notebook paper to wardens, prison officials and others advocating for her son. Her letters, in a flowing cursive script, turn bold when she repeats a familiar phrase: “He is in fear for his life.” It is that devotion that drives her to continue to pay the extortion money.
“When your kid hurts, you hurt,” she said. “If you care about your son or daughter, you’d do anything you could in the world to help them.”
Donahoo said she didn’t speak to the Justice Department during its investigation, but others have fallen victim to similar schemes. According to the DOJ report, a Ventress prisoner’s mother in January 2018 reported that she and her son were being extorted for money to pay off an alleged $600 debt to another prisoner. Because of his failure to pay, the victim was beaten and threatened with rape. “His mother later called to report that she was being extorted by a prisoner at Ventress who texted her photos of a prisoner’s genitals from a cell phone,” the report stated. “Through texts, he threatened to chop her son into pieces and rape him if she did not send him $800. In February 2018, the inmate called our toll-free line and affirmed what his mother had reported.”
The Alabama Department of Corrections says it investigates every extortion case involving inmates and “will charge and prosecute any individual proven to be involved,” whether the person is an inmate or not. Over the past 18 months, ADOC says its Investigations and Intelligence Division has looked into 18 extortion cases. The department notes that extortion schemes are often associated with illegal contraband, such as cell phones, which officers look for during contraband sweeps in its institutions.
Alabama’s men’s prisons are at 180 percent of capacity and have about one-third the security staff needed.
Over the last few months, ADOC has initiated several high-profile contraband sweeps through its prisons. Last week, more than 300 law enforcement officers staged a predawn raid at William C. Holman Correctional Facility, beginning about 4:30 a.m. at the maximum-security Atmore lockup, which houses 870 inmates. Officers seized 356 makeshift weapons, 91 grams of meth, 98 grams of marijuana, cocaine, more than 400 assorted pills and 16 cellphones, ADOC officials announced Friday.
In February, ADOC held another contraband raid at St. Clair Correctional Facility. Over the last three years, ADOC says it has confiscated more than 12,000 cellphones in sweeps of all its facilities.
How do cellphones get in? Through several avenues, ADOC says, including visitors and unsecured perimeters at prisons. Last year, ADOC said it made more than 60 arrests for crimes ranging from smuggling contraband cell phones to drug trafficking. There are other ways for contraband to get in. Last year, federal prisons were added to FAA restricted zones for drones – another potential method of getting items to inmates. While state prisons are not included in this, ADOC said a review is underway about adding them.
Last February, ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn and other state corrections directors met with officials from the Federal Communications Commission about introducing new technology, such as jamming equipment, to make contraband cellphones unusable inside correctional facilities. But this would require action from Congress and the FCC. And these remedies are not cheap. A similar system under consideration for the South Carolina prison system, which includes 17 facilities, was estimated at costing $9 million.
And as with other problems facing Alabama prisons, ADOC said preventing contraband could be improved by hiring more officers and building better prisons. In February, Gov. Kay Ivey announced that her administration will seek bids for building three regional prisons for men to replace aging, cramped facilities that ADOC has said are too costly to maintain and repair.
“By increasing our staffing and improving the conditions of our facilities, we will be able to build on some of the new processes and procedures that have been implemented to prevent contraband from entering our facilities,” the department said. That makes sense to John Blume, the director of Cornell University’s Death Penalty Project. Blume represents death penalty and juvenile offender cases and has some familiarity with contraband issues. He said an inmate in another state’s prison system laughed at the idea of drones bringing in contraband. Most of the items come in, he said, by correctional officers. A regular morning sweep of prison perimeters would eliminate most of the items getting in. “They’re understaffed and underpaid,” Blume said of correctional officers. “That creates the financial incentive to bring it in. When you’re short staffed, there’s not a lot of oversight. Better pay would reduce the financial incentives, and more officers would increase the professionalism.”
One case last year in Alabama illustrates the problem. A correctional officer with a 10-year career was arrested in December after investigators said they found multiple packages containing 10 cell phones during a search of his vehicle. ADOC said the officer admitted to purchasing the phones with the intention of receiving payment from inmates.
And extortion schemes are not specific to Alabama prisons. Last year, five South Carolina inmates and 10 other people were implicated in what authorities called a “sextortion ring.” According to investigators, the inmates created fake profiles on dating websites and posed as women who wanted to date military personnel. They sent nude photos found online, requesting nude photos in return. The inmates would then contact the victims pretending to be the father of a juvenile female and demanding hush money. Authorities said the racket brought in more than $560,000 from 442 military personnel.
Blume said contraband and extortion rackets also point to another issue – prisons with lack of programming and rehabilitation services, Blume said. Inmates with little incentive to do anything other than drugs will engage in extortion, among other things, as the level of violence and abuse continues to escalate behind bars.
“We’ve created a system that’s all stick and no carrot,” he said. “At a certain point, all stick won’t work.”
Let’s address recidivism realistically – We are making a difference- kra With letter to Inmate – kra
As soon as I saw this, I knew this guy had read my Editorial piece. Sure enough, he thanks me and Steve Hampton, Esq. toward the end of his Commentary. My email going to Steve Hampton within 15 minutes:
Steve,
Check it out. I shall be writing to this inmate within 48 hours (I got his S B I # from our friend Lori with Link of Love) to thank him for his Commentary, and to encourage him to keep it up and to tell more inmates to speak out in similar fashion! 🙂
The more the merrier. The more, the more legislators and others may start to see the light concerning the insane way our probation system is now operating.
Excerpts from the Article:
Attorney General Kathy Jennings suggested that reforms in our justice system addressing current laws, stack charging and the sentencing guidelines would improve our recidivism rate. However, addressing our mass probation system would improve our recidivism more quickly and more dramatically than any other choice.
In our small state of Delaware there are about 17,000 people on probation, more than three times the prison population. An extravagant cost to our taxpayers and a tremendous burden on a probation system. The mass probation equals a high ratio of probationers to officers. This leaves little or no time for the probation officer to address and help their clients with individual needs. Instead of being counseled, clients are treated like this is a police state and they’re still in prison.
Most office visits that are conducted as follows; you check in and wait 45 minutes to an hour. You’re called and walk ahead of your P.O. to his or her office. You go through the routine questions, Any problems? Nope. Still working? Yes. Any drug use? Nope. Any police contact? Nope. Unless you’re scheduled for drug test, it’s; “bye, see you next week”.
The informality of this routine leads clients to believe that the system is nothing more than a watchdog waiting for you to trip up. So let’s be realistic, probation officers are trained to be police and have little if any training in counseling. Time and time again we read in the newspaper that probation officers are involved in major criminal activities without any relevance to probation.
The statistics bear this out as a high percentage of probationers end up back in prison within the year after their release. Often for behavior that would not be a crime if they were not on probation. Two-thirds of the prison’s recidivism rate is due to people being sent back for a violation of probation. The vast majority of them are technical violations, i.e., failing a drug test, late for curfew, not working, missed an appointment, etc. etc.
How can this happen? Why does this happen? In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs and if you haven’t seen a movie called, “The House I Live In,” by Eugene Darecki, please sit down and watch with your children or friends. There’s still a war but the war is on freedom — freedom from the monetary oppression due to lack of employment and job skills.
If only our political powers that be looked outside the financial benefits and the benefits from warehousing people in prison and consider practical problems that would help reduce recidivism, i.e., job workshops on how to seek, fill out an application and interview for employment, free up the probation officer giving them more time in training counseling, implement a job programs through probation where employers can seek experienced in capable workers.
In all, we need to come up with better ways to improve the lives of people being returned to society other than placing them on excessive probation and policing them in a never-ending cycle.
I would like to thank Ken Abraham and Steven Hampton, Esq., “What a monster we have created in our justice system”, commentary from March 15. For I was like Johnny on probation, working steady and doing OK. I already completed the recommended so-called drug treatment programs in prison and outside of prison. But I too goofed and blew numbers for drinking in my own house and under the tolerance law I was violated. The judge, regardless of a recommendation that I be placed back on probation, gave me another 2 1/2 years in prison followed by two years and $13,000 in fines. I call this excessive sentencing. But as you stated, “it is simply job preservation for all involved”.
David Downer, of Dagsboro, is an inmate housed at the Sussex Correctional Institution.
Letter to Inmate:
Mr. David Downer … Dude! 5/7/19
Good job on your Commentary, published today, 5/7/19. I am putting it on my website and in my newsletter, and sending it to Kathy Jennings. I know her from way back.
I write to encourage you to keep it up, and encourage other inmates to speak out in similar fashion.
If you have anyone on the outside with a phone and an email address, have him/her contact me ASAP. 302-423-4067 . I really have NO time to open/read/write letters. kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
IF the jackass C Os retaliate against you in any serious way, notify me immediately! I know what goes on in there.
My email to Steve: Steve,
Check it out. I shall be writing to this inmate within 48 hours (I got his S B I # from our friend Lori with Link of Love) to thank him for his Commentary, and to encourage him to keep it up and to tell more inmates to speak out in similar fashion! 🙂
The more the merrier. The more, the more legislators and others may start to see the light concerning the insane way our probation system is now operating.
…
Keep your spirits UP!
Ken
Delaware’s drug laws are out of balance. Here’s how we can fix that. With Letter to the Editor – kra
Kathy Jennings, Delaware’s Attorney General, Sen. Elizabeth Lockman, D-West Wilmington, and Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, wrote an excellent Editorial piece (We Must Bring Balance to the Criminal Justice System) in which they hit the nail on the head, addressing most of the major problems in the system today. NOW all they need to do is penetrate the skulls of some Bozo legislators, to enact needed changes!
Excerpts from the Article:
We have heard from countless people in Wilmington, in Dover, and across Delaware about our drug laws, all saying the same thing: the status quo isn’t working, and it’s time for us to change it. “Tough on crime” drug policies have long enjoyed bipartisan support, but today the benefit of hindsight makes it clear that well-intended policies have come with serious unintended consequences. While research does not suggest that our drug laws have effectively reduced violent crime, ample experience and data tell us that current policy comes at a significant cost to the corrections system, to taxpayers, and disproportionately to communities of color.
Federal prison populations have nearly quadrupled since 1986. A significant plurality of current federal inmates – nearly half – are serving sentences for drug charges and, troublingly, about 75 percent of them are black or Latino – despite research from the Brookings Institution that shows rates of drug use and drug dealing are roughly equal between white and black Americans.
Similar racial disparities also persist in Delaware’s criminal justice system. Recent data from Delaware’s Statistical Analysis Center shows that from 2016 to 2018, black defendants were nearly three times more likely than white defendants to be charged with a felony drug offense.
In all three counties, about two-thirds of all arrests for aggravated felony drug charges were black. Conversely, white defendants were significantly more likely than black defendants to face a misdemeanor as their highest charge. As of 2017, roughly 60% of Delaware’s prison population was African American. At the time of the 2010 census, African Americans were 21% of Delaware’s population.
Those numbers are even worse than they sound: the Sentencing Project ranks Delaware’s proportion of black inmates 8th in the nation.
It is not an indictment of any individual to recognize that these facts and patterns represent clear failures in the system. Delaware has to be committed to combatting the addiction epidemic and to fighting high-tier drug dealing.
At the same time, we need to balance that mission with a recognition of these disparities and seek out sensible reform, particularly when it comes to the lowest-level drug offenders. Part of that is an enforcement issue, and the Delaware Department of Justice announced in February that its prosecutors will use greater discretion on issues like low-level drug offenses, habitual offender designations, and technical violations of probation.
But it’s also clear that a significant part of the problem is the law itself. Delaware’s drug code includes several provisions that serve to widen racial disparities in drug arrests, charging, and sentencing. By way of example, current law enhances penalties for drug offenses within 300 feet of a park, a place of worship, or school. On paper, that policy may be well-intended; but in practice, it uniquely criminalizes drug use in cities, where any given resident is significantly more likely to live near a park, church, synagogue, or school than their counterparts in suburbs or rural areas.
We don’t have to choose between public safety and progress. We have to choose both.
That’s why we’re introducing and supporting legislation to correct, simplify, and modernize Delaware’s drug code.
This legislation eliminates geographic enhancements for parks and places of worship, and applies the geographic enhancements for school zones to drug dealing but not simple possession. It also eliminates enhancements for prior drug offenses, consolidates quantity tiers (the weight thresholds that trigger elevated offenses for higher-level dealers over lower-level users) from five tiers to three, and repeals outdated and redundant sections of code.
There is no silver bullet for multigenerational poverty, structural inequality, or the challenges of drug use and addiction; but this is an important step forward. We cannot responsibly accept a status quo where a single crime inherently carries a more severe punishment for someone living in Wilmington or Dover than it does for someone living in Middletown or Hockessin.
Delaware needs to rebalance the scales, modernize our laws, and bring our drug laws into better alignment with our shared values of equal justice and public safety. The General Assembly can take action to do that now, and we hope it will.
Editorial Commentary Submission – Leadership and Action are Needed – 5/6/19
Kathy Jennings, Delaware’s Attorney General, Sen. Elizabeth Lockman, D-West Wilmington, and Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee wrote an excellent Editorial piece (We Must Bring Balance to the Criminal Justice System) in which they hit the nail on the head, addressing most of the major problems in the system today. NOW all they need to do is penetrate the skulls of some Bozo legislators, getting them to enact needed changes!
Ms. Jennings is in a position to make a huge difference – a drift toward fairness – by having her prosecutors use more sense when determining which charges to bring, or not bring … such as technical violations of probation, and she is introducing legislation to eliminate some of the racism and bias in the system. It does nobody any good to keep throwing people in prison because they have a drug or alcohol problem.
The big problem is that too many Bozo members of the General Assembly lack wisdom and leadership; they just keep feeding their constituents what they think they want to hear. “Bozos”?! Too rude or too strident? NO. People’s lives are being needlessly destroyed because of legislative inaction and lack of leadership. The legislators should educate the public as to the current injustice, the justice in what needs to be done, the huge economic savings … thus showing leadership in combining public safety with fiscal wisdom and fairness.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
…………………………..
I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others. THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO REACH THOUSANDS OF READERS!
The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.Do what works: Write that Letter!…………Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses).
Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067!
GOOGLE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR” FOR THE TOP TEN NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR STATE AND SAVE THAT INFORMATION FOR REPEATED USE – Some papers will print a letter from you every 2 weeks, some every 30 days, some every 90 days.They have varying policies. But if you really want to make a difference shoot them a new letter once a month!
I send one out every 2 weeks.Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer? NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME AT 302-423-4067.
Contact Us
Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE
430 Kings Hwy
Ste 414
Dover DE 19901
302.423.4067
