Jeffrey Epstein Death: 2 Guards Slept Through Checks and Falsified Records The guards did not check on him for three hours, officials said. The disclosures came as the guards and the warden at the jail were removed.
This confirms exactly what I said when I heard of his death. READ Epstein Found Dead READ IT!
As with virtually every prison suicide, there was not “conspiracy”. The guards simply did not do their job. The just don’t give a shit. YOU KNOW WHY THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT? IT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT! They are so accustomed to screwing up, violating laws and policies, that they do it with the most high-profile inmate in the nation! It is second nature for them to ignore rules and laws, BECAUSE they almost never are held accountable!
Before you say something stupid like “they’re only inmates”, let me remind you that there are tens of thousands of INNOCENT people in our jails and prisons, and many of them, understandably. are on suicide watch! READ Prison Abuse – Why Massive Indifference is a Massive Mistake – kra
The only surprising thing here is that the feds admit what happened. It happens every day – to someone’s son, daughter, brother, Mom, – but they never will admit that!
Maybe this will call attention to the problem. The real horror and outrage should be not that Epstein “cheated justice”, but that this is what goes on in our prisons! The warden and the guard involved should be fired and PROSECUTED!
Excerpts from the Article:
The two staff members who were guarding the jail unit where Jeffrey Epstein apparently killed himself fell asleep, failed to check on him for about three hours and falsified records to cover up their mistake, according to several law enforcement and prison officials with knowledge of the matter.
Those disclosures came on Tuesday as the two employees were placed on administrative leave and the warden of the jail, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, was temporarily reassigned, pending the outcome of the investigation into Mr. Epstein’s death, the Justice Department announced.
The two staff members in the special housing unit where Mr. Epstein was held — 9 South — falsely recorded in a log that they had checked on the financier, who was facing sex trafficking charges, every 30 minutes, as was required, two of the officials said. Such false entries in an official log could constitute a federal crime.
In fact, the two people guarding Mr. Epstein had been asleep for some or all of the three hours, three of the officials said.
The attorney general, William P. Barr, on Monday ordered the Justice Department’s inspector general to look into how Mr. Epstein had managed to commit suicide while in custody and why he had been taken off a suicide watch 12 days earlier. “We will get to the bottom of what happened,” Mr. Barr said.
The warden, Lamine N’Diaye, will be transferred to a Bureau of Prisons office in Philadelphia while the F.B.I. and the Justice Department’s inspector general conduct inquiries. The Justice Department said in a statement that it might take additional punitive actions.
Prison staff discovered Mr. Epstein, 66, dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, officials said. He had apparently hanged himself with a bedsheet, likely fastening the sheet to a top bunk and pitching himself forward, law enforcement and prison officials said.
A registered sex offender known for his lavish lifestyle and high-profile connections, Mr. Epstein faced charges of exploiting dozens of girls for sex acts.CreditCreditUma Sanghvi/Palm Beach Post, via Associated PressMr. Epstein had been awaiting trial on charges he had sexually abused scores of teenage girls at his mansions in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla.
He had apparently tried to commit suicide once before, on July 23, shortly after he was denied bail, which resulted in him being placed on suicide watch, prison officials familiar with the incident have said.
Six days later, prison officials determined that he was no longer a threat to his own life and returned him to a cell in the 9 South housing unit with another inmate, officials said. That inmate was later transferred out of the cell, leaving Mr. Epstein alone on Friday night.
Though it is standard practice to house people who have recently been taken off suicide watch with another person, the prison did not replace Mr. Epstein’s cellmate.
The Justice Department, which oversees the Bureau of Prisons, did not immediately identify the two correctional officers who were placed on administrative leave.
One of the staff members was a former correctional officer who had taken a different position at the detention center that did not involve guarding detainees. He had volunteered to work again as a correctional officer for the extra overtime pay, a law enforcement official and an employee at the jail said.
The second officer, a woman who was assigned to that wing, had been ordered to work overtime because the jail was short-staffed.
Some union leaders for prison workers expressed dismay with Mr. Barr’s decision to allow the warden to continue working, even as the two staff members were placed on leave.
“It makes me angry that they reassigned the warden,” said Jose Rojas, an official in the prison employees’ union and a teacher at the Coleman prison complex in Sumterville, Fla. “They didn’t put him on administrative leave like the others. The warden made the call to take Epstein off suicide watch and to remove his cellmate. That is egregious.”
In addition to the investigations by the Justice Department, the inspector general and the F.B.I., two other reviews of Mr. Epstein’s death were underway, a Justice Department official said.
A team of psychologists from the Bureau of Prisons visited the Manhattan jail on Tuesday to review each step of the decision to take Mr. Epstein off suicide watch.
On Wednesday, an “after-action team” — led by the bureau’s Southeast regional director — is scheduled to be at the prison to determine whether employees and officials followed protocols in the days and weeks before Mr. Epstein died, the official said.
Mr. Epstein’s death has drawn sharp criticism from Republican and Democratic lawmakers. On Monday, the chairman and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the acting director of the Bureau of Prisons, Hugh Hurwitz, demanding answers about how Mr. Epstein could have been unsupervised long enough to take his own life.
The letter said Mr. Epstein’s apparent suicide had brought to light “severe miscarriages” or deficiencies in how inmates are managed at the jail and had “allowed the deceased to ultimately evade facing justice.”
It was signed by Representatives Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, and Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican.
Mr. Nadler and Mr. Collins demanded that the Bureau of Prisons hand over by Aug. 21 any details about Mr. Epstein’s mental health evaluations and his housing, as well as the bureau’s protocols for handling inmates considered at risk of suicide.
They also requested to be told how Mr. Epstein was being monitored and what the surveillance cameras may have recorded in or near Mr. Epstein’s cell.
At the same time, Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, urged Mr. Barr on Tuesday to rip up an agreement federal prosecutors in Florida had reached with Mr. Epstein in 2008 that shielded not only him, but also any other co-conspirators who may have helped him lure teenage girls into prostitution. “This crooked deal cannot stand,” Mr. Sasse said in his letter.
The Whole Story:
Jeffrey Epstein dead after apparent suicide in New York jail
Some people are surprised, because he was on “suicide watch”. Not me, for I have seen what really happens in our prisons!
- He should have had NOTHING in his cell which he could use to commit suicide. 2. Guards should have checked on him every 15 to 20 minutes (time varies from prison to prison). Here is what REALLY happens: the guards sleep through their 8 hour shift, and when they wake they falsify documents by checking off the boxes on the form to indicate that they did check on the inmates every few minutes, as required! I have SEEN them do this.
Moreover, prison administrators often lie about cause of death. He could have been murdered, and the prison personnel will not admit it.
Excerpts from the Article:
Jeffrey Epstein, the politically connected financier and registered sex offender charged recently with sexually abusing dozens of young girls in the early 2000s, has died by apparent suicide while in jail and the FBI is investigating, the Bureau of Prisons said Saturday.
Epstein, 66, was found unresponsive in his cell in the special housing unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City about 6:30 a.m., the Bureau of Prisons said. Lifesaving measures “were initiated immediately by responding staff,” who then requested aid from emergency medical services, the bureau said. Epstein was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the bureau said.
ABC News, which first reported the incident, said that Epstein had hanged himself.
The Bureau of Prisons called the death an “apparent suicide,” though one official cautioned that the investigation was in its early stages and no final determination had been made. Aja Davis, a spokeswoman for the New York City Medical Examiner, said that her office was investigating the death.
Epstein, a multimillionaire with ties to celebrities and politicians including President Trump and former president Bill Clinton, was arrested last month on federal sex trafficking charges that could have put in him prison for 45 years. Prosecutors alleged he abused dozens of young girls at his Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., homes and enlisted his victims to bring him others.
Last month, Epstein was found in his cell with marks around his neck, and authorities were trying to determine if he was attacked or attempted suicide. He showed no obvious signs of distress at a later court hearing.
People close to Epstein refused to rule out foul play, according to one person familiar with their discussions early Saturday, and asserted that Epstein seemed in good spirits in recent days. His attorneys are seeking to learn from authorities how Epstein’s body was found, and how such an incident could have occurred, this person said.
Epstein’s case had attracted widespread attention — in part because of his wealth and political connections, and in part because of a lenient plea deal he reached more than a decade ago to resolve similar allegations. That 2008 agreement allowed Epstein to plead guilty to just two state charges in Florida, avoiding federal exposure entirely, and spend just 13 months in jail, with work-release privileges. The deal was approved by Alex Acosta, who was then the U.S. attorney in Miami and would go on to become Trump’s labor secretary — a post he resigned after Epstein was charged last month and the controversy over the previous case was reignited.
Epstein’s death comes less than 24 hours after a court unsealed a massive cache of records, laying out disturbing details about Epstein’s alleged activities and the people in his orbit who might have observed them.
Sigrid McCawley, another lawyer for victims, said the timing was “no coincidence,” and she was hopeful the government could continue to investigate “those who participated and facilitated Epstein’s horrifying sex trafficking scheme that damaged so many.”
“The reckoning of accountability begun by the voices of brave and truthful victims should not end with Jeffrey Epstein’s cowardly and shameful suicide,” McCawley said.
Attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents two alleged victims, said on MSNBC she now plans to file a civil lawsuit against Epstein’s estate in an effort to collect money for her clients. She called on the executors of his estate to freeze Epstein’s assets and not begin to distribute them to his beneficiaries.
The death is sure to draw intense scrutiny of the Bureau of Prisons and the Metropolitan Correctional Center. The high-rise federal detention center in downtown Manhattan has a fearsome reputation; one inmate who spent time there and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, famously said Guantanamo Bay was “more pleasant” and “more relaxed.”
The facility is no stranger to high-profile inmates. It recently housed notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman while he was on trial in Brooklyn, and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has spent time there around court proceedings in New York — though records show he has since been moved to a different facility in Pennsylvania.
“It is inexcusable that this rapist was not under constant suicide watch,” Sasse said. “These victims deserved to face their serial abuser in court.”
Employee with prison contractor Connections admits to cheating taxpayers and to falsifying records
This is what prison officials and members of the corporations providing “health care” do EVERY DAY IN AMERICA: lie like hell to cover their crimes. READ Culture of Cover Up!
Billions of YOUR tax dollars are thus wasted!
Cathy McCabe, CEO of Connections, has ZERO credibility with her denials of wrongdoing!
Excerpts from the Article
A counselor from Connections Community Support Programs, the state’s largest contractor for physical and mental health services, has admitted in court to lying about services provided to people in need in the state.
This time, it’s the federal government accusing a Connections employee of falsifying records to make it seem like counseling occurred as part of a contract with the Delaware Department of Labor.
William Brown, a former job employment counselor for Connections, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in Delaware District Court this week. His job was to meet with clients recovering from drug and alcohol addiction and help them secure and keep a job, according to court documents.
In May, The News Journal published an investigation into reports that the contractor falsified records to conceal inadequate addiction treatment at Crest South, a taxpayer-funded substance abuse program for drug offenders that is run by Connections in Georgetown. That was part of a contract Connections has with the state’s corrections system.
Over a dozen inmates at Crest South said they received little or no individual counseling during their stay. Four former Crest counselors said the program supervisor instructed subordinates to falsify and backdate records to indicate clients had received counseling and treatment plans when in fact they did not.
In the federal case, Connections contracted with the state to provide the service through a program called Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, which provides help to those with disabilities at offices statewide. The division is part of a state agency but is mostly funded by the federal government, according to court documents.
Connections is paid based on the submission of reports confirming clients were placed in a job and retained that job, Brown’s charging document states.
The nonprofit is paid $2,600 for each client who completes job readiness training and development and is placed in a job, said Kenneth Briscoe, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of Labor. There are other aspects of the contract Brown was not involved in.
In court, Brown, 51, admitted to faking documents to make it look as if clients were successfully using the service. This included forging client signatures and falsifying employment pay stubs. “I knowingly submitted forged documents,” he said in court.
Those falsified documents ultimately led to the wiring of money that ultimately was paid to Connections from the federal government. The scale of the fake counseling is unclear. The charging document cites a single $892 transfer initiated by Brown’s forged paperwork. Kim Reeves, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, said the forging was not a one-time occurrence.
In court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Whitney Cloud said the crimes constituted a loss between $40,000 and $90,000. She said it involved more than 30 forged documents.
Brown faces a maximum of 20 years in prison when sentenced later this year.
He said state officials intend to show contractors like Connections that their employees can’t get away with “criminal conduct that defrauds taxpayers” while also withholding services from those who need it.
It is the second time this year Connections has been accused of falsifying documents. The agency holds $100 million in contracts with Delaware government.
A former employee at Connections CSP says she was told to falsify dozens of female patient records at Crest South.
Delaware DOJ Spokesman Mat Marshall declined to comment on the status of that investigation or its scope this week.
Three Florida Prison Guards Face Charges After Leaked Video of Inmate Beating – HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE! – kra
Florida’s “professional” corrections officers at their finest! READ Why the Massive Indifference is a Massive Mistake!
Prison Abuse – Why Massive Indifference is a Massive Mistake
This crap goes on frequently in America’s prisons for one reason: too few abusive guards are prosecuted and imprisoned.
Three are facing charges? Every single one involved should be charged! Hell, I was a prosecutor, and I’d have them convicted in an hour!
Excerpts from the Article:
Authorities say three Florida prison guards are facing charges after a video taken by an inmate using a smuggled cellphone shows several guards beating another prisoner.
The Florida Department of Corrections announced the charges Wednesday against Captain Milton Gass and correctional officers Hunter Lingo and Joshua Petersilge. Lingo and Petersilge have been charged with battery, while Gass is accused of falsifying reports.
Investigators say the attack occurred July 8 at Lake Correctional Institution in Clermont.
An unnamed inmate gave commentary on a five-minute video as the beating was happening. He shot the video through a cell window and sent it to another person, who uploaded it to YouTube on July 13.
Officials say an investigation is ongoing and more arrests or administrative sanctions are possible.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the guards had attorneys.
Here is the shocking video of the beating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bx6G8gdYMA
Federal Court Overturns $4 Million Verdict Against Wisconsin County Over Jail Sexual Assaults
This is an awful decision. Here we see some idiot judges who do not see the folly of their decision to allow a county to avoid liability for its employees. At least one judge spoke out in dissent.
In a stunning reversal, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month tossed a $4 million jury verdict imposed on Polk County, Wisconsin for failing to prevent—despite prior warning— the repeated sexual assaults of two female inmates by one of
The Seventh Circuit’s ruling hinges on Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision, which declared that municipalities cannot be held accountable for the unconstitutional acts of their employees. Monell did leave some room for accountability by permitting lawsuits directly against municipalities if their policies or customs subjected or “caused to be subjected…the deprivation of any federally protected rights.”
The High Court later clarified that a municipality’s failure to adequately train its employees could be proof that it was “deliberately indifferent,” which would be “the functional equivalent of a decision by the [county] itself to violate the Constitution.”
In overturning the jury verdict against Polk County, the Seventh Circuit claimed there was “no connection between the assaults and any county policy,” as the county explicitly banned sexual harassment, as well as any sex between inmates and guards, in its written materials.
But “policies cannot exist on paper alone,” Judge Michael Scudder shot back in a scathing dissent. As the judge recounted, there was no evidence presented to the jury that the county took steps “to train guards to hold each other accountable to the county’s bright-line prohibition on any intimate contact with inmates” or “monitored its employees’ compliance with its policies.”
Nor were there any accounts of the county “ensuring or reinforcing that inmates had access to a safe and confidential channel through which to report inappropriate sexual conduct by jail guards,” as inmates are especially vulnerable to sexual assault.
In fact, before the guard’s abuse came to light in 2014, the county already had evidence that its written policy was “insufficient.” Two years earlier, a female inmate alleged that another guard repeatedly engaged in predatory behavior, including “inappropriate touching.” This guard only got a written reprimand, while Polk County “took no action to reinforce its sexual assault policies with all other male guards.”
With this in mind, Judge Scudder argued that “a reasonable jury could have found that Polk County acted with deliberate indifference to the need for more training and monitoring to prevent the sexual assault of female inmates by male guards and in doing so caused the injuries suffered by plaintiffs.” After all, a “reasonable jury” already determined that Polk County should be held liable, which is why it imposed $4 million in damages against the county.
According to Scudder, the majority’s decision is not just “mistaken,” it’s “dangerous.” Thanks to the court’s ruling for Polk County, “municipalities may conclude that there is not much to be done to stop a rogue guard from engaging in secretive and heinous conduct,” even though under the Eighth Amendment, “cities and counties have a meaningful responsibility and role to play in preventing the sexual abuse of inmates in their custody by the guards they employ.”
Attorneys for both the inmates and the county declined to comment.
“If the panel’s decision stands,” the Institute for Justice warned in its amicus brief, “municipalities in this circuit will be able to skirt liability for constitutional infringements simply by promulgating policies they have no intention of ever enforcing.” This could have “perverse effects:” Cities and counties would “conclude that the work of monitoring and deterring violations of their paper policies is unnecessary,” while inmates would have “less incentive to report their abuse.” Without proper accountability, this would make constitutional violations even “more likely.” Local governments must pay the price when they fail to uphold the Constitution.
ACLU: U.S. has taken nearly 1,000 child migrants from their parents since judge ordered stop to border separations
tRump is still doing it, doing it more, and lying like hell to us about it! Ignoring, again, an order from a Federal Judge, the tRump administration is grossly misrepresenting what is going on at the border. Ripping young children from their parents because Mom or Dad had a driving violation is BULLSHIT!
READ these excerpts: “the group represented 120 children and found that nearly all separations were “contrary to the best interests of the child” and “devastating” to families.” and …“a small fraction of the 911 children the Department of Homeland Security has taken from their parents since June 2018 have been at risk.”
Claims that they are acting in the interest of the children are flat out LIES. Only a handful of cases fit that description!
Excerpts from the Article:
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union told a federal judge Tuesday that the Trump administration has taken nearly 1,000 migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border since the judge ordered the United States government to curtail the practice more than a year ago.
In a lengthy court filing in U.S. District Court in San Diego, lawyers wrote that one migrant lost his daughter because a U.S. Border Patrol agent claimed that he had failed to change the girl’s diaper. Another migrant lost his child because of a conviction on a malicious destruction of property charge with alleged damage of $5. One father, who lawyers say has a speech impediment, was separated from his 4-year-old son because he could not clearly answer Customs and Border Proection agents’ questions.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan has said that family separations remain “extraordinarily rare” and occur only when the adults pose a risk to the child because of their criminal record, a communicable disease, abuse or neglect. Of tens of thousands of children taken into custody at the border this year, 911 children were separated since the June 26, 2018 court order, as of June 29, according to the ACLU, citing statistics the organization received from the government as part of ongoing legal proceedings.
During a July 12 tour of a detention center in McAllen, Tex., reporters saw almost 400 men being held in cages. They allegedly crossed the border illegally. (The Washington Post)
While the judge recognized that parents and children might still be separated when a parent is found to pose a risk to their child, the ACLU and others say federal immigration and border agents are splitting up families for minor alleged offenses — including traffic violations — and urged the judge Tuesday to clarify when such separations should be allowed to occur.
“They’re taking what was supposed to be a narrow exception for cases where the parent was genuinely a danger to the child and using it as a loophole to continue family separation,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said in an interview. “What everyone understands intuitively and what the medical evidence shows, this will have a devastating effect on the children and possibly cause permanent damage to these children, not to mention the toll on the parents.”
The rising tally of child separations adds to the approximately 2,700 children who were taken from their parents during a chaotic, six-week period from May to June 20 last year, when a Trump administration border crackdown triggered one of the worst crises of his presidency.
The policy sought to deter a crush of asylum seekers, who were surrendering as families at the U.S. southern border, by prosecuting parents for the crime of illegal entry and sending their children to federal shelters. Reports of traumatized, crying children led to widespread demands to reunite the families.
Six days later, U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw, a President George W. Bush appointee in San Diego, ordered the Trump administration to reunite the families, a process that dragged on for months because the government had failed to track the families after splitting them up. A still-unknown number of families were separated before the policy officially began.
But the ACLU and other nonprofit organizations serving immigrants estimated that a small fraction of the 911 children the Department of Homeland Security has taken from their parents since June 2018 have been at risk.
Jennifer Nagda, policy director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, a child advocate for unaccompanied and separated children, told the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform that the group represented 120 children and found that nearly all separations were “contrary to the best interests of the child” and “devastating” to families.
More than 40 percent of the separated children were five years old or younger. Children spent nearly four months in federal custody, on average, in part because it was difficult for lawyers and case workers to locate their parents and assess the reason they were separated.
“DHS officials with no child welfare expertise are making split-second decisions, and these decisions have traumatic, lifelong consequences for the children and their families,” Nagda said in her testimony.
Former Virginia inmate wins $1M in medical malpractice suit – And these cases cost YOU tons of money! – kra
Who do you think pays, every year, for so many avoidable deaths like this? YOU do! Your tax dollars pay not only the awards and/or settlements, but the costs of the whole process: the court costs, judges’ salaries, and in almost every case, the salaries or fees earned by attorneys on BOTH sides, totaling billions of dollars annually! CALL me at 302-423-4067 if you want a full explanation of how this works!
Excerpts from the Article:
A former Virginia inmate won more than $1 million in a malpractice suit against prison medical staff he accused of improperly treating his broken finger, saying he still feels the effects. U.S. District Court records show a jury awarded the damages to 32-year-old John Kinlaw on Thursday.
“There should be no difference in the standard of treatment between an inmate and a regular person,” said Kinlaw. “The people that mistreated me were going to be held responsible.”
News outlets report he filed a suit against Armor Correctional Health Services Inc., after his release from Lunenburg Correctional Center in 2017. He says he fractured a finger bone in the prison recreation yard and medical staff only gave him an ice pack and Motrin. The suit accuses staff of ignoring X-rays that showed he could need surgery.
According to the complaint, despite weeks of Kinlaw notifying Dr. Charles Nwaokocha, contracted by ARMOR, that his hand still needed medical attention, the medical staff failed to move forward in having his hand properly stabilized or get him surgery.
The complaint details that Kinlaw informed the Armor medical staff every few days that he could not close his hand and was afraid his fracture was healing the wrong way. The complaint also states Armor – including Nurse Banks, Nurse Price and Nwaokocha – either denied or delayed any additional treatment or imaging for his hand.
In one meeting a month a and a half following his fracture, Kinlaw demonstrated to Nwaokocha that his ring finger could not bend, and in response, Nwaokocha is quoted as saying he needed “more healing.”
The complaint says Kinlaw waited over 100 days before being taken to a specialist, who confirmed his hand healed wrong.
“There are a lot of things I’ll never be able to do again,” said Kinlaw. “According to the testimony, I possibly have to get the amputation that my orthopedists have said I may have a chance to get back all of my dexterity.”
In 2017, Kinlaw contacted Nexus Services Inc, which funds medical malpractice prison cases, and they agreed to see his case. “What we do is we take cases involving complaints about government agencies police, prisons and jails and evaluate them and refer them to a law firm to prosecute them, so we’ve been working with john now for a couple of years now,” said Nexus CEO and president Mike Donovan. “It’s very clear that they just didn’t want to spend money and perhaps that’s the ultimate irony because now they are going to have to pay over a million dollars to Mr. Kinlaw.” Kinlaw was awarded a total settlement of $1,058,761, with $700,000 of that amount in compensatory damage and over $300,000 in punitive damages
According to the Department of Justice, only five percent of medical malpractice cases go to trial with 85% of those resolved in favor of the physician.
Kinlaw said he is making goals to become an aviation mechanic, but he that he might have to put those plans on hold depending on the amount of treatment his finger will need in the future.
Mass. DOC is making a mockery of new solitary confinement regulations – Prison Secrecy is BULLSHIT! – KRA
This is all too typical: prison officials who will not comply with the law, and try to hide their real operations. What these articles don’t tell you is that THE primary reason people are put in solitary confinement is to try to shut them up, stop them complaining about all of the abuse! See related articles on prison secrecy: prison officials are trying to hide their crimes,and if you don’t think so, you have no clue about what goes on in America’s prisons!
Excerpts from the Article:
What’s the state Department of Correction so afraid of?
Its new rules on the use of solitary confinement and a gag rule for an oversight committee charged with playing watchdog over its implementation are embarrassing for a state that was once a leader in prison reform. If these “emergency regulations” are actually allowed to remain in effect, the Baker administration will have solidified its reputation as the least transparent since Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge occupied the Corner Office.
The rules in question stem from the trailblazing Criminal Justice Reform Act of 2018, which tackled a host of thorny issues, including use of solitary confinement — or “restrictive housing,” as it is known in corrections. Solitary confinement can be harsh punishment, and its use should be rare and strictly regulated. To that end, the law created due process procedures for those confined to their cells for more than 22 hours a day.
It also created an 11-member Restrictive Housing Oversight Committee that includes, by statute, representatives of the Disability Law Center, the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health, Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, and the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, plus, of course representatives from the corrections system.
Then, back in March, the Department of Correction began its steady efforts to undo much of what the legislation had attempted. It created “Secure Adjustment Units” to which inmates could be confined up to 21 hours a day and simply redefined them as not “restrictive housing.” As state Senator Jamie Eldridge, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, put it in a letter to Secretary of Public Safety and Security Thomas Turco, “[t]he creation of Secure Adjustment Units is inconsistent with the spirit of the CJRA [Criminal Justice Reform Act]. The legislation did not intend for the DOC to immediately circumvent the restrictive housing definition with new units.”
So any inmates in those newly renamed units would not be entitled to, for example, the 90-day placement review called for in the legislation. And in keeping with the DOC’s efforts to do an end run around the law, the agency has drafted “emergency regulations” — in effect until at least the end of August — that would make a toothless tiger of the Oversight Committee.
As first reported by Shira Schoenberg at masslive.com, by renaming the units and insisting that only whatever remains of truly “restrictive units” comes under the committee’s purview makes its role virtually meaningless. The regulations further restrict access by committee members, prohibit surprise visits to facilities, and prohibit committee members from talking to the press or the public without the consent of the committee chair. That would be the secretary of public safety himself.
“The ability to speak freely to the press and to the public is the bedrock of a functioning democracy,” Eldridge wrote in his letter to Turco. “It is also a cornerstone of effective oversight.”
Members of the committee should have unfettered access to DOC facilities. It is as critical to their mission as the ability to speak out about what they have seen.
Sure, prison security is important — important to protect prisoners themselves. But in much of what it does lately — including a host of new restrictions on prison visitors — the Department of Correction fails to acknowledge that many of these inmates will indeed be returning to their communities.
The 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Act was intended in ways big and small to make incarceration more humane, more just, and. for many, a path to a more productive post-incarceration life. It’s time DOC implements not just the letter but the spirit of that law.
Former Florida Jail Guard Gets 120 Days For Throwing Inmate Down – Not Enough! – kra
It’s good that the abusive guard got time, but think about it; if the situation were reversed, the inmate would have been sentenced to years in prison!
READ How to avoid the deaths of prison guards and inmates … or do you want to join the countless officials who refuse to acknowledge this huge problem called prison abuse?
Excerpts from the Article:
A former Florida corrections deputy has been sentenced to 120 days in jail for throwing a restrained inmate to the ground.
Video evidence was a key in the case.
News outlets report that 34-year-old Paul Wagner pleaded no contest last month to felony battery in Manatee County court.
Prosecutors say Wagner was escorting an inmate through the county jail in June 2017 when a verbal altercation over a contraband search occurred.
Security video shows Wagner pinning the inmate to the wall and then throwing him to the ground.
An internal affairs investigation found that the inmate suffered a broken nose and teeth.
The Whole Story:
Former Florida Jail Guard Gets 120 Days For Throwing Inmate Down
Federal prison officials get bonuses as staffing shortages, management problems persist – Outrageous! – kra
Most interesting to me is that we see here two of the main ways – reasons often repeated in the face of a serious inquiry – prison administrators try to avoid being held accountable for wrongdoing: 1. “It is a matter of prison security” and 2. “There is a shortage of guards”
Both are bullshit and here is why: as to #1, the matter often has nothing to do with prison security, and, even if it did, the inquiring authority could seal it! But the courts buy the argument of prison officials, reasoning that they are the best people “to determine the orderly administration of the prison”. This, however, is a false premise. They are not interested in “the orderly administration of the prison”; they are interested in hiding their wrongdoing! As to #2, the main reason that there is a shortage of guards is that new recruits quit in droves when they see the crimes committed daily by their fellow C Os!
Human Rights and Human Wrongs.
Excerpts from the Article:
The federal prison system paid $1.6 million in bonuses to its top executives and wardens during the past two years despite chronic staffing shortages and sharp critiques of prison management leveled by Congress, according to records obtained by USA TODAY. The payments – the latest in a series of annual awards – ranged from $5,400 to $23,800 per official. The largest sums went to the agency’s leadership team, including $20,399 tothe U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ acting director, Hugh Hurwitz, and the wardens of prisons who confronted what union officials described as dangerous shortages of guards.
Joseph Coakley, who managed the maximum security complex in Hazelton, West Virginia, where notorious gangster Whitey Bulger and two other inmates were murdered last year, received $20,399. Coakley, who retired this year, collected an additional $34,500 in awards paid out during 2015 and 2016 for his work at Hazelton and at a facility in Beckley, West Virginia.
Bulger’s murder drew a harsh spotlight to conditions at the Hazelton prison complex, where in addition to the violence, authorities had long grappled with officer vacancies that persisted at federal prisons across the country.
A shortage of prison officers forced wardens to tap secretaries, teachers, nurses, kitchen workers and other nonsecurity staffers to patrol cellblocks, solitary confinement units and prison yards, often with little preparation for their new roles.
“Bonuses are given based upon work performance,” the bureau said in a written statement. “Information contained in the performance award justifications may relate to safety and security and therefore, would not be releasable.”
At least two congressional committees raised questions about the widespread deployment of civilian staffers to cover officer vacancies and other management issues in the federal prison system. The Bureau of Prisons is the nation’s largest correctional system, responsible for managing 121 facilities that house 180,000 inmates.
Last year, Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., cataloged troubling allegationsby whistleblowersin a letter to Hurwitz, including sexual harassment complaints against bureau officials, prison security breaches, assaults on guards and persistent staffing shortages. “These allegations are grounds for serious concern,” Johnson wrote.
“Please explain how BOP decides to promote, reward or give bonuses to staff, including those involved in sexual abuse allegations,” a committee investigator wrote to one bureau staffer last year. The investigator’s questions, reviewed by USA TODAY, did not specifically identify officials accused of sexual abuse. Addressing its use of civilian staffers to cover guard posts, the bureau said, “Staffing decisions are based on the needs of the facility, and augmentation is one tool to ensure critical correctional officer posts are covered on a daily basis. All wardens are responsible for ensuring a safe and orderly running of correctional facilities and use every means possible to ensure the safety of staff, inmates and the public.”
“This is completely disheartening,” said Joe Rojas, union chief at the bureau’s largest prison complex in Coleman, Florida, where he said a staffing report showed that the complex was down about 200 people, including officers and other support personnel, from its authorized 1,370 staffers.
The warden at Coleman, Roy Cheatham, is listed as having received a $20,399 bonus during the most recent distribution in 2017-2018.
“How can you justify these bonus payments when we don’t even have enough people to staff the place?” Rojas said. “There is no way to justify this.”
Contact Us
Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE
430 Kings Hwy
Ste 414
Dover DE 19901
302.423.4067
