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Written By Incarcerated - Advancing Social Justice

Florida county jail injury

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A mentally ill prisoner at the Broward County Jail in Florida used a razor to commit an act of self-mutilation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“I have a real medical emergency,” the prisoner, who goes by the initials J.I., told an officer. “I just cut off my penis and flushed it down the toilet. I have no need for it anymore.”

J.I. was sent to solitary confinement for yelling at staff and had been there for 112 days prior to the incident. Even before his placement in solitary confinement he exhibited abnormal behavior — he refused to eat or take his medication and had public masturbation episodes.

These behaviors were red flags that the doctors overseeing J.I’s care failed to notice. J.I.’s medical files contained little information about his status and, as his mental state declined, his treatment plan was not updated. Prisoners in solitary are isolated in a cell roughly the size of a parking space. These conditions are often consequential for an individual’s mental health, which should be assessed and monitored before placement in solitary. J.I. was not assessed before his placement in solitary, according to the ACLU.

J.I.’s self-mutilation was only one case involving prisoners with mental health issues at the Broward County Jail. One prisoner diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder starved himself to death. Months before, another prisoner starved to death— standing six- foot-two-inches tall and weighing 240 pounds at his arrest, he weighed a mere 120 pounds at his death.

Prior to J.I.’s mutilation, a court-appointed expert issued a report finding life- threatening shortcomings with the jail’s mental health program, citing a failure to exclude patients with serious mental illness from solitary confinement. The expert concluded that the mistreatment and neglect of those with mental illness at the jail was “absolutely inhumane.” The ACLU has filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the prisoners at Broward County Jail.

A comprehensive plan to remedy the problems has been crafted but must be approved by a federal judge before it is implemented. Once approved, those with serious mental health issues will be excluded from solitary, treatment plans will be developed, and patients will be placed in psychiatric hospitals rather than being housed at the county jail.

USSC denies stay of execution because of constitutional issues

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Over the last three months, six executions in the United States have been stayed or rescheduled because of constitutional issues regarding the method of execution or who can be present in the death chamber, according to Reuters.

At the helm of this controversy is the state of Alabama, according to recent articles featured in Reuters and Mother Jones.

Christopher Price was scheduled to be executed at the beginning of April. Price filed an appeal when he found out that he was to be lethally injected. He wants to die by lethal gas. The lower courts granted him a 60-day stay of execution. The state of Alabama appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

After some last minute arguing, the court decided 5-4 along ideological lines, with a conservative majority voting to proceed with the execution. The decision, which was issued at 3 a.m., was too late. The death warrant had expired. Alabama will have to set a new execution date.

The Alabama ruling comes at a time when the justices have been clashing over capital punishment. Conservative justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that an eleventh-hour stay of execution should be an “extreme exception.” It appears that the case of Christopher Price did not rise to that standard. The issue for the state of Alabama was the timing.

The state contends that Price and his lawyers had ample time to alert the state and let them know how Price wanted to be executed.

The liberal side of the high court maintained that the hasty decision made in the middle of the night undermined the criminal justice system. Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the liberal justices, called the litigation an example of arbitrary administration of the death penalty. He wrote that Price’s claim failed because of a minor oversight by his lawyer when filing evidence to support his argument.

“To proceed in this way calls into question the basic principles of fairness that should underlie our criminal justice system,” Breyer wrote.

Price, who was convicted of killing a minister, has no objection to dying. He con- tends that the three-drug protocol would cause him severe pain, and that nitrogen hypoxia would reduce that risk.

In a similar case, Russell Bucklew, a convicted murderer, sought to die by lethal gas. He has a rare medical condition that he claims could make his execution by lethal injection “gruesome.” He requested that the execution be delayed 60 days so he could proceed with his request to be executed by lethal gas. The Supreme Court, however, was not persuaded. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the Constitution does not guarantee a condemned prisoner “a painless death.”

Study: mental health diagnoses result in high rates of prisoner isolation

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New Mexico has one of the smallest prison populations in the country at 7,300 but is fourth in the nation when it comes to confining prisoners to solitary, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.

On any given day one out of 10 prisoners is being held in isolation, just because they have been diagnosed with mental illness, accord- ing to the article.

According to the ACLU, the state has routinely underreported its use of solitary confinement over the past decade, in part because it has no clear definition of “solitary” and instead uses “multiple and constantly changing terms” to refer to the practice.

Researchers from the University of New Mexico along with the ACLU found that 90% of the prisoners surveyed said they had been diagnosed with mental health problems and had been enrolled in the Preda- tory Behavioral Management Program and spent eight months in solitary confinement, according to the article.

Criminal defense attorney Matthew Coyte said that solitary confinement is an issue that poses cost and safety problems for the public.

Coyte, who worked with the ACLU, says that segregation only worsens a prisoner’s mental state instead of providing rehabilitation, said the article.

“We have been manu- facturing mental illness for years with this form of incar- ceration,” he said. “You don’t want people who are incar- cerated to come out worse.”

Prisoners in isolation com- plained about a lack of recreation time, losing track of time, experiencing violent thoughts, fits of rage, and hearing voices. Some had thoughts of suicide, the article said.

The Corrections department and the governor are trying to come up with some solutions, but they are having a hard time hiring and retaining officers. At the release of this story in March, they were still look- ing for a Secretary of Corrections, according to the article.

Several Democrats are sponsoring a bill that would stop the isolation of juveniles and pregnant women and confine those diagnosed with mental issues to no more than 48 hours in lockup.

The governor wants to take a look at New Mexico’s Department of Corrections policies on solitary confinement and suicides in the prisons, said the article. She said that solitary confinement “should be used in only the most extreme and narrow circumstances.”

Josh Anderson, a union representative for prison officers, said that the group is open to looking at how to improve living conditions and is reviewing policies for managing the state’s prisons, according to the article.

More than 4,000 mentally ill prisoners held in isolation

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More than 4,000 prisoners diagnosed with mental illness throughout the country are being held in solitary lock-up, according to The Guardian.

Confinement intensifies their illness. Despite U.S. prisons having this knowledge, this practice continues, the article said.

“This is tragic,” said Judith Resnik, a professor of law at Yale University. She is the director of the Arthur Liman Center. “Solitary confinement is a disabling setting that is harmful for human health and safety. It can do harm for people who are mentally OK and inflict terrible damage on people who are already mentally ill.”

Yale researchers, along with the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA), revealed that this terrifying experience among prisoners is very prevalent, according to the article.

The ASCA and Yale researchers stated that the mentally impaired are kept in isolation at least 22 hours a day for more than two weeks.

These researchers found that out of the 33 states who responded to their survey, only one state, Texas, said that they have no mental health patients in solitary.

More than a third of the states that replied stated that 10 percent of male prisoners with mental illness are locked-down. Missouri had the highest number, 703 men, while New Mexico had the highest proportion at 64 percent.

Colorado is one of the success stories. The state has new rules in play. When prisoners are diagnosed with mental illnesses they are treated for their illness instead of being confined.

Recently U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an opinion in a case the court declined to hear. She said she was “deeply troubled” by the ongoing practice. She wrote that “solitary confinement imprints on those that it clutches a wide range of psychological scars.”

The amount of time spent in isolation remains high. Spending 22 hours a day in a cell measured 6 feet by 9 feet takes its toll, said the article.

The survey said that the number of mentally ill in lock-up is declining and that since 2014 the segregated population has fallen from 100,000 to 61,000 as of last year.

Progress remains mixed, however, as numbers in 11 states have increased.

Collateral consequences of incarceration still linger

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Jay Jordan’s story is an example of the barriers the formerly incarcerated face when trying to make a new life outside of prison.

He was paroled in 2011 following seven years in prison. He filled out 30 applications as a barber, a skill he learned while locked up. He remained unemployed. Everywhere he went, his past convictions stopped employers from even considering him, reports Kay Wicker for thinkprogress.org.

These circumstances are anything but unusual. One in five Californians have convictions, according to a report published by Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ), an organization for which Jordan now works.

The report showed that a “vast majority have never done any time,” but their convictions are barring them from living a productive life. In fact, nearly 75 percent of parolees are unemployed a year after they are released.

A conviction in California can act as a barrier for attaining safe housing, public benefits and gainful employment. It also complicates issues of immigration and can negatively affect one’s health, medical or mental, according to the article.

Jordan managed to turn his frustrations into activism, taking on a number of jobs involving community organizing or political campaigns before CSJ hired him in 2016. However, employment was only one of his hurdles.

He and his wife cannot apply for adoption because of his conviction. They bought a home recently, but Jordan is not allowed to join the Home Owners’ Association. They have discussed a dream of starting a company, but Jordan cannot apply for licensing.

“I’m affected by every other (barrier),” said Jordan.

The CSJ report shows the systemic marginalization of living with convictions.

“A wealth of evidence indicates educational programming is one of the most effective approaches to reducing recidivism,” reported CSJ. “Still, individuals with convictions, particularly if they have been incarcerated, must overcome significant obstacles in accessing educational and vocational training programs.”

Approximately 40 percent of those incarcerated nation-wide do not have a GED or a high school diploma, and 46 percent have no secondary education. This hinders access to jobs, making it harder to reestablish community ties and abstain from criminal behavior. Those who make it into colleges or technical schools still face massive systemic hurdles in completing their degrees. For example, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (VC- CLEA) prohibits the incarcerated from getting Pell Grants, which do not need to be repaid, unlike loans, noted the CSJ study. Additionally, those who committed drug offenses while receiving federal financial aid are no longer eligible for “federal financial aid to attend an institute of higher learning.”

The CSJ report, which Jordan helped compose, is the first step in a campaign called Time Done, which hopes to clear a path toward sunsetting convictions.

“This is not about shorter sentences,” Jordan said.” This is about people who are out and have served their time, have paid their debts and remain crime-free and have proven they can live in society and be productive. All we are saying is, ‘Let’s not put our foot on their necks as a country.’”

Subtle tactics to dismiss Black jurors in CA trials

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Some prosecutors may be using subtle tactics to dismiss Black jurors, despite laws against such racial bias in jury selection, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

You could call it the “O.J. Strategy.” Rather than addressing race overtly, these prosecutors ask jurors whether they agreed with the controversial 1995 acquittal of O.J. Simpson. Simpson, a Black football star, was charged with the murders of his ex-wife and her friend, who were both White.

If jurors agreed with the verdict, they are dismissed, and prosecutors cite non-racial reasons. Others are added to the jury if their answers satisfy the prosecutors, according to the article.

The Simpson case isn’t the only tactic prosecutors have used to discriminate, say defense lawyers. Federal and state courts in California said jurors were California removed because they lived in predominantly-Black Los Angeles communities, according to the article.

Attorneys for two Black men on California’s Death Row said prosecutors used the O.J. Simpson question to select juries in the 1990s. The victims in both cases were White.

California’s high court has upheld similar convictions in other cases.

In one of the cases, Johnny Duane Miles was convicted of rape and murder by a jury with no Black members.

Two Black prospective jurors were removed from that trial after answering that they agreed with the Simpson verdict. But prosecutors say their removal was due to their skepticism of presented evidence, the Chronicle reported. Miles was sentenced to death in 1999.

Miles’ lawyer Cliff Gardner contested the prosecutors’ explanations, describing them as “pretexts for discrimination.” He added that the jurors who were dismissed came from law-enforcement-friendly backgrounds: The first was a Marine Corps veteran and married to a correctional officer. The other was the son of a federal drug agent.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office has argued that while the O.J. Simpson case was still national news, it was fair game for pre-trial questioning, according to court filings.

“The Simpson case was not about race,” Deputy Attorney General Seth Friedman said in the filings, which are a response to NAACP arguments on Miles’ behalf.

Instead, he argued that the trial is a stand-in for issues relevant to future cases such as “the reputation and trustworthiness of police officers,” the Chronicle reported.

More job opportunities opening up for formerly incarcerated

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More job opportunities are opening up for parolees and others with criminal records, according to CNBC.com.

The Prison Policy Initiative estimates unemployment among ex-felons at 27 percent, but some corporations and human resource executives show signs of interest in hiring former inmates, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, (SHRM).

“This is not a problem of aspirations; it’s a structural problem, involving discrimination and a lack of opportunities made available to people who have been to prison,” said Lucius Couloute, an analyst at the Prison Policy Initiative. “It really takes employers who are willing to let go of their biases in pursuit not only of equality but of the best candidates.”

Eliminating bias and destigmatizing criminal history is a priority at Greyston, a bakery in Yonkers, N.Y, that makes brownies for companies such as Ben & Jerry’s, Whole Foods and Delta Airlines. Greyston was founded by a Buddhist monk and uses an “open hiring” model where anyone who makes it through an apprenticeship program can get a job.

Former drug dealer Dion Drew works for Greyston. Drew got out of prison in 2008 and started out as an apprentice at $7.15 an hour. Now he is paid $25 an hour and acts as an ambassador for open hiring. He even did a Ted Talk on the subject with Greyston’s CEO Mike Brady.

There are two key factors to being hired: A verifiable work history paired with some level of education or training post-conviction, which indicates personal growth while incarcerated. Drew believes his success stems from the decisions he made while incarcerated.

“I set my goals and plans while I was upstate,” Drew told CNBC. “I wanted to save money the right way, to have a family. I wanted to put the smile back on my mom’s face.”

Greyston actively tries to interest other companies in their approach through a project, the Center for Open Hiring. It trains companies in investing in training rather than spending time and money trying to avoid “red flags.”

Changing employers’ attitudes toward working with ex-felons is still complicated. While companies may be open to the idea, only five percent actively recruit parolee’s, according to the SHRM report.

The federal government offers a tax incentive to employers who hire and retain ex-felons, veterans and others with significant employment barriers. If the employee works 120 hours a year, the company can claim a tax credit of 25 percent of its first year’s wages and 40 percent if they work 400 hours.

A study by the RAND Institute found that such incentives are productive. Another important incentive is being able to recover staffing-agency fees if the new hire doesn’t work out. Or, in the case of ex-felons, the agencies find a replacement for free, if the ex-offender isn’t successful on the job.

New Jersey-based consultant Eric Mayo says some well known minimum wage employers are open to hiring parolees. They include McDonald’s, CNBC’s parent company Comcast, and Atlantic City casinos

“I encourage people to apply for every job they feel qualified for,” Mayo said. “Even without a felony record, looking for a job is a numbers game.”

US High Court excludes Imam at execution

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A Muslim prisoner awaiting execution for rape and murder in Alabama lost a court appeal that claimed that his religious rights were being violated by not allowing his spiritual prayer adviser (imam) to be present during his execution, according to the ABA Journal. com

Domineque Ray was put to death after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated his stay of execution by Alabama’s lower courts. Ray wanted the state to allow a local imam at his execution, not the Christian chaplain, who worked for the state.

The state contended that the imam did not work for the state and was not familiar with the stages that lead up to the execution, the article stated. The highest court in the country agreed with the state in a five to four decision.

“Domineque was a devout Muslim and a human being. He was a son, a father, a brother,” Spencer Hahn, Ray’s attorney, told AL.com after the execution. “He wanted equal treatment in his last moments.

“I am beyond appalled at the willingness of [Alabama Attorney General] Steve Marshall and the state of Alabama to treat a human being differently because he was part of a religious minority. We are better than this,” Hahn added in his statement.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent for the minority on the bench, which agreed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the Alabama Department of Corrections favors Christian prisoners, according to the article.

“Nevertheless, in the face of this limited record, it looks substantially likely to us that Alabama has run afoul of the establishment clause of the First Amendment,” the 11th U.S. Circuit opinion stated. “Under that policy, a Christian prisoner may have a minister of his own faith accompany him into the execution chamber to say his last rites.”

In her dissent Kagan wrote, “But if an inmate practices a different religion— whether Islam, Judaism, or any other—he may not die with a minister of his faith by his side. That treatment goes against the establishment clause’s core principle of denominational neutrality.”

The majority of the Supreme Court justices agreed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama that cited that Ray waited until the “eleventh hour,” though he had the last 12 years to “seek a religious exemption,” according to the article.

Ray died of lethal injection in early February. He spoke his last words in Arabic, the language of his faith.

Colorado Department of Corrections to spend $41 million for hep-C treatment

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Colorado has agreed to provide medical treatment to cure hepatitis C among 2,200 prisoners.
The action came in the settlement of a lawsuit against the Colorado Department of Corrections. The prison system said it would spend $41 million over the next two years to finance the treatments, according to a Sept. 12 Westword story.
The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) and the Fox Rothschild law firm.
“The funding and policy changes in the settlement will help solve an immense public health crisis in Colorado’s prisons,” ACLU Legal Director Mark Silverstein said.
The suit accused the Colorado Department of Corrections of denying treatment to prisoners battling hepatitis C because of the cost of the medication. Officials also required patients to undergo months of substance abuse classes before they could begin treatment, according to Westword.
Another Westword news story from 2016, “The Deadliest Killer in Colorado’s Prisons, a Curable Virus” reported that prison officials devised harsh requirements for treatment. Attorneys for the prisoners accused the state of delaying the cure because of the high cost of the medication,
According to Westword, 823 prisoners have died in 15 years, and a study shows 161 (or one in five) were hep C-related, and liver disease. Twice the number of suicides happened during that same period, three times the number of deaths due to sub- stance abuse, and four times the number of homicides, ac- cording to the article.

“ …will help solve an immense public health crisis..”

The data did not specify how many liver-related deaths were caused by hep C-related illness Westword reported that 17 percent of the nation’s prison population have hep C.

The severe rationing of treatment was cost-related. Projected cost over a 12-week period was $95,000 per prisoner, according to the article.
For its 2018 and 2019 bud- get, Colorado allocated $20.5 million to address the back-log of prisoners waiting for treatment. The new treatment eliminates the virus in over 90 percent of those infected, according to the article.
The DOC had planned to treat 400 prisoners over a 10-year span. Their aim is to treat all infected prisoners by 2035. But, according to the article, the lawsuit fast-tracked the procedure.
The state will no longer subject prisoners to substance abuse classes or use liver enzyme numbers to deny them treatment. With cost dropping below $20,000 per patient, the backlog will be eliminated, and proper treatment will cut down on liver transplants and other complications, Westword reported.
Curing hep C in the prison population “will go a long way towards reducing public health risks for hep C transmission across the nation,” said Christopher Beall, an attorney for Fox Rothschild.

The purpose behind prison strikes

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The push for better food and higher pay in prisons coupled with ongoing parole denials sparked a nationwide prison protest in August.

Prison reform advocacy groups confirmed that demonstrations were taking place in prisons across the country and beyond—from California and Washington to Nova Scotia in Canada, according to The Guardian.

There were also unconfirmed reports of prison strikes in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

The strike, which was the first nationwide prison demonstration in two years, was triggered by a riot in a South Carolina prison last spring that occurred when seven prisoners were killed, the article reported.

Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, a group of incarcerated activists, put out a set of 10 demands to “overhaul” the jail systems throughout America.

Top priority on the list: To end forced, or underpaid, labor.

“Slave labor…still exists in the United States in 2018,” wrote inmate Kevin Rashid Johnson to The Guardian. “In fact, slavery never ended in this country.”

Johnson is serving a life sentence in Sussex state prison in Waverly, Va.

Other demands called for a greater investment in rehabilitation and better medical and mental health treatment.

In North Carolina, a manifesto calling for the end of solitary confinement was released in July. It states, “No human shall be sentenced to death by incarceration.”

Organizers were trying to get the public’s attention about the spike of in-custody deaths. In Mississippi alone, The Guardian reported that 10 prisoners died in their cells within a three-week period in August.

No cause of death was reported, the article said.

Also in North Carolina, inmates at another prison held banners that read “Parole,” “Better Food” and “In Solidarity.”

There were reports of inmates who didn’t work, avoided purchasing at prison commissaries, and went on hunger strikes.

But accounts of the events happening on the inside remain contested.

In Florida, unconfirmed reports surfaced alleging that 11 of the state’s 143 prisons were impacted by the protests. That report stood in contrast to what a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Corrections said: “We’ve had no stoppages, protests or lockdowns related to the strike.”

Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, an advocacy group, said that because of “the nature of high-security prisons,” a lot of the activity going on inside has not reached the public yet—and may not ever.

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