LOCAL NEWS Racial bias detected in housing, punishment at King County jail, audit finds An audit found Black inmates received 23% more infractions than white offenders in King County corrections from 2017 to 2019.
The same racial bias is rampant nationwide. Racism permeates every aspect of our criminal justice system.
Excerpts from the Article:
An audit of King County corrections found racial bias evident in housing and discipline and made recommendations to decrease disparities.
The audit, which was presented Tuesday to the King County Council Law and Justice Committee, examined data and incidents from 2017 to 2019 at the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle and Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
Black people in custody were overrepresented in higher security housing and were more likely than white people to be infracted for violent incidents, according to the audit.
Although Black people make up 36% of the jail’s population, auditors found they made up half of the two highest security levels at the jails.
Black inmates also received 23% more infractions than other people, and the punishment was more severe. The audit found Black women were punished with 70% more days in restrictive housing compared to other women; Black men received 24% longer punishments. Indigenous women also faced harsher punishment, spending 18% more days in restrictive housing compared to other women.
The audit also examined violent incidents. Between 2017 and 2019, investigators found the rate of violent incidents was nearly three times higher and the rate of incidents targeting staff was nearly four times higher at the Seattle jail than in Kent.
However, the report found social distancing was key in reducing incidents last year. When the pandemic hit, the adult King County jail population decreased from about 2,000 inmates to 1,300, and the Seattle jail stopped double-bunking inmates. Although the inmate population dropped 47%, fights and assaults plummeted 63%, according to the audit.
Though auditors found pepper spray was sometimes misused by staff, excessive use of force among officers was “rarely found” with four cases of excessive and unnecessary force documented over the audit’s three-year period.
The audit made 25 recommendations, including several to reduce bias. Those recommendations include making changes to the sanctions process and revising its management risk scoring rubric to reduce bias as well as monitoring the racial makeup of incident data to detect disparities.
California Starts Phase-Out of Most State Juvenile Prisons, but Loophole Allows Two to Remain Open
A smart move; get rid of the loopholes! Numerous studies have shown that 75% kids sent to juvenile prisons end up in adult prisons!
Excerpts from the Article:
Beginning in July 2021, California will stop accepting nearly all youth offenders at three facilities operated by the Division of Juvenile Justice (“DJJ”). This resulted from an August 2020 deal between Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature whereby the majority of offenders age 25 and younger will be confined in detention centers operated by local governments to permit them to serve their time closer to their homes, families, and communities.
However, the deal contained a loophole: two state-operated facilities in San Joaquin and Ventura counties will remain open for youth who are at risk of being prosecuted as adults.
Two decades ago, around 10,000 youth ages 12 to 25 were confined in state facilities. But juvenile crime has since plummeted, with DJS facilities now holding about 775 youthful offenders (and county facilities confining another 2,250). The cost of housing offenders in the DJJ had skyrocketed to more than $300,000 per person annually.
The DJJ also had a dismal performance record. A 2017 evaluation reported that 75% of youth discharged were rearrested within three years of release. The report reflected a similar finding made in 2002. Generations of people who had been confined in the DJJ’s facilities spoke at a 2020 meeting in Salinas, stating that when they were released they were “ill-prepared for life outside, not knowing how to open a bank account or find a job,” The Imprint reported. Assemblyman Phil Ting said of the new plan, “This is about providing some sunshine on a system that is not working.”
The new program established an Office of Youth and Community Restoration (“OYCR”) as part of California’s Health and Human Services Agency instead of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The OYCR will be charged with the task of providing consistent standards and greater accountability for California’s 58 county juvenile justice systems. The OYCR is to “promote trauma responsive, culturally informed services” and will include the state’s first-ever ombudsman for youth justice to investigate complaints about harmful conditions or practices at juvenile facilities in California.
The new plan has faced much opposition and criticism. Assemblyman Jim Cooper said “this entire program is set up for failure for most of the counties.” Of primary concern is the challenge of how small, rural counties will have constitutionally adequate structures and programming to handle youth offenders.
Further, young people with mental health problems who had committed sex offenses or who had a history of involvement with violent gangs were previously sent to the DJJ because county facilities are not equipped to house them. But a new Juvenile Justice Realignment Block Grant will give counties $40 million in 2021 to make improvements, and that amount is set to jump to almost $209 million in the 2024 fiscal year.
Edgar Ibarra, a student of the University of California, Davis (who was also incarcerated in DJJ’s facilities from 2008 to 2012), said, “We can’t afford to mess this up. We need to set these guys up for success so they don’t have to go back to prison or get locked up again like we did.”
Woman sues MN Department of Corrections, says officer sexually assaulted her during transport
This is the entire article from Prison Legal News. I wish I had a dollar for every case of such abuse; pray that she wins!
Woman sues MN Department of Corrections, says officer sexually assaulted her during transport
Randy Beehler, a defendant in the civil case, pleaded guilty last week to third-degree criminal sexual conduct in the state’s criminal case.
A woman is suing the Minnesota Department of Corrections and former corrections officer Randy A. Beehler for damages after Beehler allegedly traded lunch from McDonald’s for sexual favors while transporting her as an inmate in September 2019.
The lawsuit, filed in January by the woman, alleges that the state, its Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell and Beehler violated the woman’s constitutional rights and Minnesota law.
The lawsuit also argues the state was negligent in allowing a single male correctional officer to transport a female inmate alone and without direct supervision.
Sprawling prison abuse lawsuit tied to Vaughn riot dismissed; others continue
Unfortunately, this was inevitable. Because the guards who beat inmates, then denied them medical care, and otherwise abused them, wore their “goon squad” uniforms – full facial coverage – and wore no badges or names, it was impossible to prove who did what to whom. Damn shame.
Here again we see that DOC officials cannot be believed: Correction Commissioner Claire DeMatteis, who took over the department in the summer of 2019, and other defendants denied the allegations in court. DeMatteis has said that no abuse occurred following the uprising. … Bullshit; If they had not intended to commit crimes and other abuses, why did the guards conceal their identity and prevent the filming of their conduct?
Excerpts from the Article:
Since the 2017 fatal riot inside a building at Delaware’s largest prison, dozens of inmates that were in that building have said in court, lawsuits, interviews and letters that they were assaulted and deprived of basic rights in the hours and months after by corrections officials.
And since then, those claims have been the thrust of lawsuits meandering slowly through local courts. Those challenges seek recompense for injuries suffered by prisoners that said they too were hostages when control of James T. Vaughn Correctional Center’s C Building was violently overthrown by a smaller set of prisoners.
Last week, a federal judge in Wilmington dismissed the largest lawsuit making such claims, a complaint that sought damages on behalf of 107 inmates against 52 defendants, including at times Gov. John Carney, top Department of Correction leadership and a host of officers.
That lawsuit largely focused on what happened after a team of inmates used coordinated violence to take the building’s three officers and a counselor hostage, kill one of those officers and hold the building for 18 hours starting on Feb. 1, 2017.
The lawsuit claims that officers retaking the building wore black masks, hid their name tags and went cell to cell, delivering indiscriminate kicks, punches and racial slurs to inmates while encountering no resistance from those still in the building.
It claims the police deliberately decided not to record the retaking of the building and denied the inmates substantive medical care immediately afterward. Then, in the months following, it claims corrections officials sanctioned “systemic torture” of C Building inmates.
Inmates who were taken from Vaughn’s C Building when the uprising was quashed were cycled into the building’s yard where investigators photographed puddles of blood, which inmates said was the result of indiscriminate beatings by officers.
That alleged torture included physical violence, mental abuse and denial of basic rights.
The veracity of these allegations was not tested before the court dismissed the lawsuit last week. Attorneys also did not reach the stage where they could compel evidence from the Department of Correction about the claims. Instead, the litigation failed for a lack of specificity.
In dismissing it, Delaware District Court Chief Judge Leonard P. Stark referred to the complaint as a “shotgun pleading,” leaving the reader “unaware of who exactly is being accused of what conduct.”
Attorneys for the defendants said the complaint’s lack of specificity left them unable to prepare a defense. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that was difficult because of officers’ effort to conceal their identities.
Acknowledging that, the judge said the complaint didn’t meet the required standard of clearly setting out which plaintiffs suffered which specific act of misconduct. Having afforded the plaintiffs multiple chances to address these problems in recent years, Stark dismissed the complaint and shut the door for it to be amended.
DIGITAL WALKTHROUGH:See how the Vaughn riot unfolded
“Despite the preference of the courts to adjudicate claims on their merits – and, hopefully, reach the truth of what happened, redress proven wrongs, and do justice – the court cannot do so when plaintiffs fail to do what is required to give defendants notice and begin to press their case,” Stark wrote.
Correction Commissioner Claire DeMatteis, who took over the department in the summer of 2019, and other defendants denied the allegations in court. DeMatteis has said that no abuse occurred following the uprising.
“The Department of Correction has consistently argued that this frivolous litigation was without merit and must be dismissed,” wrote Jason Miller, a spokesman for DeMatteis. “We are pleased the court has done so.”
Stephen Hampton, the Dover attorney that filed the lawsuit, said he thinks the Department of Correction has sufficient information about the allegations to move forward and defend the case and feels that Stark is holding the plaintiffs to too high a standard in not allowing the lawsuit to continue. He said he will appeal the decision to federal appeals court.
While that lawsuit was the most sprawling, others tied to the takeover and alleged abuses afterward continue to churn through the courts.
Donald Parkell, an inmate who was in C Building that day, began litigating against the department two weeks after the riot. His initial handwritten complaint was an early account of what happened during the takeover and alleged abuses in the immediate aftermath.
It was also one of the first retellings of how a group of inmates, including Parkell and Terek Downing, banded together to protect prison counselor Patricia May, who was held hostage that day.
DOWNING: He protected a woman hostage on Delaware prison’s ‘darkest day’; now he seeks mercy. The complaint is now in its fifth iteration, and the court has appointed counsel to represent Parkell.
In addition to claims about a lack of medical care following the uprising, it claims the takeover was the foreseeable outcome to state and Department of Correction leaders that understaffed the building, knowingly mixed dangerous inmates and ignored glaring warning signs in the weeks and months preceding the riot.
Officials’ intent in creating such problems was to undermine a legal settlement that changed the way the Department of Correction operated, specifically as it related to how those with mental illness are confined, the lawsuit claims.
IN DEPTH: Never-released report shows prison officer’s death should not have happened
State officials have denied the claims in court, and the lawsuit has not yet reached the phase that would potentially allow Parkell’s attorneys to demand documents and depose current and former state leaders. There are also pending lawsuits still churning filed on behalf of the men accused by police of taking over the building.
Police originally indicted 16 on charges of murder in the death of correctional officer Steven Floyd, who was killed during the hostage standoff. Two others were indicted on lesser crimes.
Dwayne Staats, who admitted his role in the takeover, was convicted of murder. Another who admitted some hand in the plot was convicted of several charges, but not murder. One inmate charged with lesser crimes took a plea and cooperated with investigators.
The rest were either acquitted by juries or had their charges dropped before trial.
C tier of C Building
Most of them are now being held in Pennsylvania’s prisons, where some say they are being treated as if they had been found guilty.
Jonatan Rodriguez, a former C Building inmate whose murder charges were dropped, sued last year, claiming that after he was indicted in 2017, officers and officials at Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown intentionally instituted a “regimen of intimidation, torture and abuse,” which included threats, slurs and denial of rights.
He also claims he was assaulted by officers who afterward carried out a coverup by falsifying reports. Officials have denied the allegations in court filings.
A separate complaint filed by Staats, the one inmate who admitted to orchestrating the takeover as a protest of prison conditions, sought to represent several others formerly charged with Floyd’s murder. It makes claims of abuse before and after the uprising.
SENTENCING: How do you punish someone already serving life?
A 2019 court order stated that the defendants had to file lawsuits individually. Since then, officials have moved to dismiss Staats’ lawsuit, which has largely been on hold due to the pandemic.
Underpinning these continued legal challenges is the fact the state has already paid $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by state employee victims of the takeover, who argued correction officials failed to act on warning signs ahead of the riot.
Steve Hampton Strikes Again – Lawsuit to hold DOC Accountable for Egregious Medical Neglect
Steve does a great job in suing prison officials!
My friend and great attorney Steve Hampton filed this complaint in superior court yesterday, and says: “but I will not be surprised if the defendants remove it to federal court. Paragraph one of the complaint pretty much explains what this case is all about. Given the reports that I keep getting on medical care in the DOC prisons, it doesn’t seem to have improved since this happened.”
1. Julius S. Johnson died at the age of 31, on July 4, 2019 a week after he was admitted to the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center (JTVCC) infirmary. Julius suffered from paraplegia and a pressure wound on his sacrum when admitted to the infirmary, yet during that week preceding his death he was denied the necessary medical care needed to keep him alive by the medical staff employed by Connections Community Support Programs, Inc. (CCSP). CCSP is a corporation that was contracted with the Department of Correction (DOC) to provide medical services to inmates such as Julius S. Johnson in DOC level 4 and 5 prisons, including JTVCC.
Stephen Hampton
sahampton@gradyhampton.com
Grady and Hampton LLC
6 N. Bradford St.
Dover, DE 19904
302-678-1265
Here is the entire Complaint: http://www.citizensforcriminaljustice.net/wp-admin/post-new.php
Inmate at Downtown Spokane Jail dies while being transported to medical services
I have seen hundreds – yes, hundreds – of articles about an inmate who died because jail intake officials did not do their job in screening the inmate for withdrawal symptoms; I bet that is what happened here.
The Whole Article:
An inmate at the Downtown Spokane County Jail died while being transported to the jail’s medical services division on Monday afternoon.
According to county spokesperson Jared Webley, the inmate became unresponsive while being transported at about noon on Monday. Staff at the jail began treating the inmate before being relieved by Spokane City Fire and AMR, but the inmate was pronounced dead at 12:30 p.m., according to Webley.
Two doses of Narcan were administered to the inmate before they died, Webley said. Spokane County Detention Services requested assistance from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, which stopped overseeing detention services in 2013, to carry out the investigation, Webley said. Major Crimes detectives and member of the Forensic Unit responded to process the scene and conduct interviews, according to Webley.
The Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office will release the name of the inmate and their cause and manner of death “when appropriate to do so,” Webley said.
At least 10 inmates at the jail have now died since June 2017.
Federal judge orders body cams in five state prisons citing abuse of disabled inmates
Pray that this order will be enforced. Prison officials routinely ignore Court Orders!
Excerpts from the Article:
A federal judge has ordered that correctional officers wear body cameras and that surveillance cameras be installed at five California prisons, citing repeated abuse of inmates with disabilities.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s order was issued Thursday in a disabilities rights case. It requires the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to place the cameras at L.A. County State Prison in Lancaster; Corcoran State Prison and the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran; the California Institution for Women in Chino; and Kern Valley State Prison in Delano. The judge gave the prisons 21 days to make plans for instituting the cameras and 90 more days to get them operational.
“The Court finds that body cameras are likely to improve investigations of misconduct by staff and to reduce the incidence of violations of disabled inmates’ rights,” Wilken wrote. The judge also mandated reforms related to tracking disabled inmates’ complaints and the use of pepper spray.
The judge made her ruling after reviewing dozens of declarations submitted by prisoner and disability rights lawyers on behalf of inmates.
“Some of the incidents involve the use of force against mentally or physically disabled inmates even though the disabled inmates appear to have posed no imminent threat to the safety of staff or other inmates,” the judge wrote. “The descriptions in these declarations of the behavior of staff toward disabled inmates are remarkably consistent,” she wrote. “Further, the declarants appear to lack any incentive to fabricate the incidents they describe with such great detail.”
The judge also ordered that there be a significant increase in the number of supervisory staff by “posting additional sergeants on all watches on all yards” at the five prisons.
“CDCR has taken steps to improve conditions for people in our care to accommodate for both physical and mental disabilities, including holding staff accountable for behavior that goes against the department’s values,” the department stated.
Michael Bien, whose law firm represents the inmates, said the order “is the beginning of a long process to fix” abuse and violations of inmates with disabilities.
The order comes after officials at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego were ordered in September to install cameras amid accusations that disabled inmates were repeatedly abused by guards. Officers there began wearing body cameras in January. Attorneys for inmates with disabilities had asked the judge to require cameras at seven prisons, but the judge found insufficient evidence of abuses at Salinas Valley State Prison and the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi.
In the 71-page ruling, the judge documented several incidents of abuse in justifying the need for cameras and other reforms. The judge noted that some inmates were too afraid to seek help.
At the Lancaster prison, an inmate with bipolar disorder was struck after complaining of hallucinations in June 2019, according to Wilken. “After a mental health evaluation, he was being returned to his cell, while handcuffed, by two officers when the officers and the inmate had a verbal altercation; once they reached his cell, the officers slammed him to the ground face-first and punched him in the head,” the judge wrote.
In December 2019, an inmate experiencing a “manic episode” at the state prison at Lancaster was taken to the ground by several correctional officers and then one officer used an entire can of pepper spray on him and “beat the inmate,” the judge noted.
Wilken said she found the dozens of declarations submitted from the prisons by inmates credible.
Under the judge’s order surveillance cameras are required to be installed in housing units, exercise yards, gyms, dining areas and other areas. Video must be kept for 90 days. Wilken wrote that without surveillance cameras, mistreatment of disabled inmates is “likely to continue.”
Covered in feces, man died of dehydration in Georgia jail ‘that looks like a friggin horse stall’ After spending eight days in a padded room, a deputy found Reginald Wilson not breathing and covered in his own feces. No mental health care was provided.
Who do you think pays for all of this horrific abuse? YOU, the taxpayers, do!
Excerpts from the Article:
A Reveal investigation has uncovered new details of a man who died at the Cobb County Detention Center in 2018. The evidence was kept secret until 11Alive filed a lawsuit against former Sheriff Neil Warren last year to obtain the records.
A familiar face at the Cobb County Detention Center, 54-year-old Reginald Wilson spent more than 1,300 days in and out of jail since 1997 for charges often related to his fragile mental health.
His last detainment happened in December 2018 following an arrest for a probation violation. When the Cobb County police officer arrived, Wilson was having a mental health crisis.
While at the detention center, Wilson’s mental health appeared worse than normal to some deputies. After he was placed in a padded room to help calm him down, he smeared his own feces on the wall. “He never slept. He was constantly just up, doing almost like gymnastics when you watched the video,” one jail employee said during an interview with investigators after his death.
According to jail records, Wilson stopped eating, drinking and refused to take medication. Despite spiraling into psychosis, records show the jail’s psychiatrist never saw Wilson. Infirmary staff never sent him to the hospital, either. During that time, deputies tased him at least two times.
After spending eight days in padded rooms, a deputy found Wilson not breathing. He had been covered in his own feces for 18 hours.
According to the medical examiner, Wilson died from “Dehydration due to Bipolar Disorder.”
In a recorded interrogation, an investigator appeared frustrated over Wilson’s treatment.
“This guy lay in s*** and trash for three days…you know. I don’t understand why he wasn’t given food…and the end of all this, he died in his cell that looks like a friggin horse stall,” the investigator said.
Jeriene Grimes is the president of the Cobb County NAACP. She’s a long-time critic of the jail and the healthcare provided to inmates. “It was a heinous way for someone to have to die,” Grimes said. “He was somebody’s family member, and no one deserves to depart the earth in that type of distress and harm.”
Since 2004, more than 217 people have died in metro Atlanta jails. Most of those deaths were investigated by the same sheriff’s offices sometimes accused of mistreating the inmate.
State Representative David Wilkerson wants to change that. In February, he filed a bill titled the, “Inmate Mental Health Act.”
It would mandate jails perform mental health evaluations within 12 hours of detaining an inmate and provide 24-hour access to a mental health professional. It would require the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate all future jail fatalities. “By having someone else look at it who are trained investigators, it gives us the public reassurance, plus it allows the jail to make corrections if things need to be corrected,” Wilkerson said.
The legislation is mirrored after a 2017 Texas law named for Sandra Bland who committed suicide inside a jail following a controversial traffic stop that sparked national outrage. Michelle Deitch helped write the Texas legislation. She’s a researcher at the University of Texas who has studied jail policy for more than 30 years.
She points out that Georgia is among about half the states in the country that does not have a state-wide oversight body regulating jails.
“[That] means it’s really up to every single jail to determine for itself what standards it will comply with, if any at all. It means, there is a lack uniformity and a much higher risk of liability on the part of every one of those counties,” Deitch said.
While Wilkerson’s bill does not include the creation of state-oversight body, Grimes supports the proposed legislation. “We need to do better. We should have done better,” Grimes explained.
Wilkerson said he filed his legislation in response to a series of Reveal investigations last year which uncovered the death of another Cobb County inmate who died begging for medical help.
Cobb County’s newly-elected sheriff supports Wilkerson’s bill and now plans to ask GBI to investigate all future jail fatalities.
Wilson’s family has filed a lawsuit against the jail’s former medical provider. That litigation is still pending.
According to the lawsuit, multiple medical staff members failed to inform a psychiatrist about Wilson’s condition or formulate a proper diagnosis or treatment plan.
The lawsuit also claims a nurse wrote in her notes that she heard Wilson making noises and moving his fingers before he died. She did not provide him medication because he was “unable to take medication.” The lawsuit alleges the nurse also did not attempt to notify the psychiatrist after Wilson refused to accept prescribed medication.
According to his medical records, the lawsuit claimed Wilson received only one pill during his time in the detention center.
Wilson’s family declined interview requests for this story.
Editorial: Big spike in inmate deaths at MDC raises some serious red flags
The never ending abuse of prisoners continues! Will we see officials arrested for the abuses mentioned here?
Excerpts from the Article:
Without delving into medical histories, it would appear that the death of a 38-year-old woman booked in a littering case could – and probably should – have been prevented. Ditto a 35-year-old man arrested on a drunken driving charge and a 48-year-old man locked up on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge.
Yes, people do die every day. And most folks booked into jail are unlikely spokespeople for healthy living, physical fitness or eschewing drugs and alcohol. But no one should die a preventable death on the public’s watch. And unfortunately it looks like this woman, two men and up to six other individuals may have.
It’s the job of jail health officials – and the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque is large enough to have them – to protect those jailed. Yet, a Journal deep dive into deaths at MDC found nine people died over the past year while in custody of the state’s largest jail – eight during a five-month period from August 2020 to January 2021 – and none of COVID-19. For context, before 2020 there were a total of just 10 in-custody deaths at MDC in the previous four years, and zero in 2018.
Albuquerque attorney Peter Cubra says the recent spike in deaths is unprecedented. He should know. The longtime advocate for MDC inmates says he’s been working around the jail since 1984.
Autopsy and incident reports show the causes of death of the nine inmates who died in the past year vary from a heart attack to chronic ethanol abuse. Some may have been unavoidable, but six of the nine deaths appear to have occurred while inmates were detoxing from drugs or alcohol or in medical units, all while under the care of a medical contractor.
And all while taxpayers were shelling out between $105 and $174 per day to house each inmate.
Bernalillo County manager Julie Morgas Baca says the county is taking the deaths very seriously. She noted one death is too many. Good for her. The easy go-to would have been to attribute the deaths as part of booking 1,500 inmates a month, as the jail did in August.
Morgas Baca says she’s working with St. Louis-based Centurion – which the Bernalillo County Commission awarded a four-year, $53 million contract in 2018 to provide a wide array of medical services at MDC – to improve medical operations. MDC spokeswoman Julia Rivera says the jail and Centurion have developed an in-depth corrective action plan to address the spike in deaths. That’s an important step in rebuilding public confidence. They also need to provide some answers.
Because this county jail is no stranger to harsh criticism for the conditions its inmates live in. It’s under a decades-long federal settlement agreement that lays out more than 200 requirements for reform.
Some of the jail deaths have led to discipline – including a probationary corrections officer who was fired for sleeping on the job while an inmate hanged himself and a corrections officer who was put on notice for termination after an inmate died while detoxing from alcohol. Those who neglect their duties must be held accountable. The stakes are too high not to.
The spike in deaths also raises fundamental questions about who is being locked up and why. The 38-year-old woman booked in the littering case kicked over a cup and bowl in front of an officer in April and refused to pick up the cup. The officer issued her a summons for littering, but she failed to show up in court and was arrested. She was found unconscious and not breathing the next day in the jail’s detox unit. A night in lockup should not imperil one’s life.
Chief Public Defender Bennett Baur of the Law Offices of the Public Defender is correct that the legal system has to be more deliberate about who’s being jailed. The Journal has long argued that violent and repeat offenders, not misdemeanants with smart mouths, should be locked up at taxpayer expense. And the disturbing indicators that people are dying while detoxing should have city and county officials asking if jail is really the most appropriate and cost-effective place to take inebriates.
In this life, some deaths are inevitable – but at least on the surface several of these don’t look that way. There are a lot of questions at this point, and the families of inmates who have died in MDC custody, as well as the taxpayers who should have confidence they are funding a safe lockup, deserve the answers.
Ex-prison officer sentenced for taking bribes in California
Prison officials search visitors and inmates regularly, when they should search the guards! Anyone who know what really goes on knows it is they who smuggle in contraband!
Prison sentences are the only deterrent.
Excerpts from the Article:
A former federal prison corruption investigator was sentenced Wednesday to 15 months behind bars for taking $15,000 in bribes to smuggle methamphetamine, cellphones and other contraband into a California lockup.
Paul James Hayes II, 52, of Victorville, was sentenced by a federal judge more than a year after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and accepting a bribe, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.
Hayes worked at the Federal Correctional Complex, Victorville, which is in the Mojave Desert. Before retiring in 2019, Hayes was a lieutenant with a federal prison unit that investigates illegal activity by correctional officers and inmates, according to the statement.
In 2018, Hayes took several cash bribes from a woman in return for smuggling at least four packages of contraband into the high-security penitentiary at the Victorville prison complex, authorities said.
He passed the goods to inmates who distributed them to other prisoners, authorities said.
A co-defendant, Angel Marie Wagner, 44, of Buena Park, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy and bribery. She was sentenced in February to two years of probation.
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