New Site for Logging Abuse Complaints on Behalf of Prisoners

Do you have a love one in lockdown? Does he/she complain about physical or mental abuses ? Are they being denied medicines or are locked down in solitary confinement for month on end? Have you complain to the "proper" authorities with no avail..?

Well here is a website to log your abuse complaints and to link with other activism on behalf of prisoners as well.

http://emergencyresponse.cc/

This is the website to log abuses, name names, and let other know what is happening behind the walls. Find out what is happening in the prison industrial complex that your tax dollars fund without your input.

Torture and death happens everyday right here in the United States Prison System. Get in touch with the truth and let people know that prisoners are still human beings.

Log on to http://emergencyresponse.cc/.

The $40M Ripoff

Hello Friends and Allies --- Most of you have followed the escalating rate of prisoner deaths in the Commonwealth's lock-ups.

You probably followed the December 2007 Boston Globe series on alleged suicides in 2006 and 2007. Three times the rate of the rest of the US.

SHaRC takes exception to the way the series played out and how certain state entities collaborated to frame this deadly epidemic.

The Commonwealth- almost to a department- has come up with its own solution to the 'problem' it created and still perpetuates: Residential Treatment Units within the Department of Correction. The agencies are all happy to look for another $40 million to build these specialized units where DOC staff and medical/pysch folks would be specially 'trained' to work with "mentally ill" prisoners.

What could be so wrong about this proposed solution?

In the coming weeks we will publish articles written by prisoners and their relatives. These folks know more than any legislator could ever learn or admit!

You will hear what happens when staff culture turns therapists, doctors and nurses into violent 'predators'.

The first document (below) was submitted by Albert Gagne, a 62 year old man presently incarcerated at NCCI-Gardner.

He responds to representaive Ruth Balser's proposed bill for Residential Treatment Units. Balser is also a pyschologist.

Mass Correctional Legal Services supports this concept, as does the Disability Law Center, the Criminal Justice Policy Coalition and other non-profit advocacy types. It is obvious such entities are not alied with prisoners but with legislators and corrections.



THE FORTY MILLION DOLLAR RIPOFF

I recently learned that the Legislature has allotted or intends to allot 40 million dollars to the MA Department of Correction to set up mental health tiers (Residential Treatment Units) its prison system, a system that has always and will always be the Number One contributor to mental illness in the United States prisons.

Verbal and physical abuse of prisoners by guards and prison administrators is routine and constant. This is a story for another time. I would like to focus at this point in time on the Massachusetts Mental Health System and my 45 years of experience within this evil and devastating taxpayer-supported horror.

Let me start with my experience at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane from 1963 to 1996. I have had a total of seventeen commitments to this horror chamber and a very well documented horror chamber in fact.

Most of my commitments were to the “Old” Bridgewater State Hospital where for years I was forced to witness and experience some of the most inhumane treatment of mentally ill human beings ever recorded in Massachusetts. Over the years, along with thousands of mental patients I was constantly subjected to vicious physical beatings at the hands of so called “corrections officers.” This happened in view of and with the approval and participation of so-called mental health professionals. Again, these are facts, which are very well documented and undisputable.

In addition to the horror just described, I was unfortunate enough to witness and be subjected to punishments such as: being tied down in four point restraints for weeks at a time while naked and cold; forced to urinate and defecate on myself while being fed through a tube; and hosed down with a fire hose when the smell was overpowering to the guards and staff of so-called mental health professionals.

I was forced to witness lobotomies conducted on wooden tables, constant shock treatments, overdoses of powerful drugs, forced feedings and years of isolation in segregated punishment cells. Some people were held as long as 20, 30, and 40 years. Cells were full of urine, feces and vomit. These conditions were ordered by and/or ignored by so called mental health professionals.

I personally observed the most horrific abuse and brutality of human beings by guards and mental health professionals, including my own, ever documented, and well documented it was.

One need only to visit the archives or observe the film “Titicut Follies”, produced by a Mr. Fredrick Wiseman, which was banned for more than 20 years in Massachusetts because of its horrific contents. I was there when Mr. Wiseman was making this film and even though the prison guards and mental health staff knew they were being filmed, they continued to abuse and brutalize the patients, all in the name and disguise of “treatment.”

For more than 32 years the New Bridgewater State Hospital has existed and to this very day, the mentally ill human beings who have the unfortunate stigma of being civilly committed there are subjected to many of the same abuses and brutality as described above: beatings, restraints, over-medication with powerful doses of drugs; and weeks, months and years of isolation in cells.

Let me move on now to my experience with the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the Prison Hospital for the Criminally Insane, located in Springfield, Missouri. In June of 1972 I was transferred to the Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute Indiana, for allegedly inciting a riot in March at Walpole State Prison. While at Terre Haute I had altercation with the warden of that prison which resulted in my stabbing him and thus my transfer to Springfield Missouri.

Upon my arrival at this so called Prison Hospital I was placed in a cell block with 6 other prisoners from various U.S. prisons, who were like myself, considered “the worst of the worst” and uncontrollable.

This cellblock was known as the “Behavior Modification Unit” and home to the Federal Bureau of Prisons “S.T.A.R.T. Program.” This was a program of sensory deprivation and brainwashing tactics created for the Federal Government by the Harvard University behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner. START’s predecessor was first and ‘successfully’ used against the North Koreans during the Korean War.

I was placed in a small cell and kept in total darkness for 60 days. The entire cell was painted black, including the windows. I could not even see my hand in front of my face. After 60 days some alleged doctor surrounded by guards came to the second tier of the program where I would be afforded light and one book to read each week. I responded by punching him in the mouth. The door was slammed in my face.

About one half hour later the door to the cell was opened and several prison guards, one of whom fired a tranquilizer dart into my chest, confronted me. In less than 30 seconds I was completely helpless and could not so much as blink an eye. (I learned much later that this drug caused a simulation of death.) I was very much aware of my surroundings, was stripped of all my clothing and four pointed in another cell on a bed of springs. (No mattress, no linens, and no blanket)

Later that day a mental health doctor came and sat on the side of the spring bed and made statements such as “You don’t like the way you feel right now do you Mr. Gagne? We can continue to do this for as long as necessary, for as long as it takes and if necessary. We can make you feel a lot worse than you are feeling right now, and so one way or another you are going to obey the rules and if you continue with your resistance things are going to get a lot worse for you. On the other hand, if you obey the rules and change your behavior you will be rewarded.”

To make a long story short this ‘treatment’ lasted some two months. Every three, four or five days they would remove the restraints, give me the first food and water that I had for those number of days and allow me to take a shower, after which I would punch the doctor or guard in the mouth and the entire situation and process would begin again.

This went on for about three months. I lost more than 70 pounds and the drug they used on me rotted out all my teeth. It was not until several months later that I learned all of the other prisoners endured the same torture that I had endured at the hands of these ‘mental health professionals’.

Some three months into this ‘mental health program’, a group of Quakers, led by Ms. Faye Kopp, toured the prison to visit conscientious objectors doing time for resisting the draft, during the Vietnam War. They inadvertently came upon this torture block and were granted permission to tour the block.

When they observed us in the conditions described above they left the prison and contacted the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. The ACLU then contacted their office in Kansas City, which obtained a federal court order to enter and photograph of us in the conditions described above. The ACLU filed suit on our behalf.

The case was tried and the court ruled that they program of torture was unconstitutional, not because it was torture and was on the verge of killing us, but because we did not volunteer to participate in the program! We were subsequently returned to the prisons from which we came. (I believe Ms. Kopp now lives in Vermont and runs a program for battered women.)

All of the facts as described above are very well documented in psychology textbooks and in the archives of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Several years ago PBS Channel 2 interviewed B.F. Skinner’s daughter. When asked what she thought was her father’s greatest disappointment involving his work she stated without hesitation: the behavior modification program he implemented for the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Federal Medical Prison in Springfield Missouri. Unlike his earlier ‘successful’ brainwashing programs in North Korea and later in Vietnam, Skinner’s 1970s U.S. prison experiment in torture and sensory deprivation was ‘unsuccessful’.

She went on to state that as result of this failure, B.F. Skinner was forced to re-write all of his papers and tests on the subject for he had come to find out and realize that unlike the Koreans and Vietnamese, who never experienced the tortures and sensory deprivations that he and his associates imposed upon them, that we seven prisoners had in fact been subjected to not only the same torture, nut even more severe tortures for most of our lives within the prison system. (In my case all my life at home and in juvenile facilities and reform schools prior to and after that age of ten (10) years old.)

So by the time of our arrival at Springfield Missouri, in other words, he and they could not do anything to us that hadn’t been done to us before we came on the scene except to kill us, which if not for Faye Kopp he most likely would have accomplished.

All of these absolutely true facts clearly show that like oil and water, mental health and corrections do not mix. The history of the Massachusetts Department of Correction and Mental Health in the prison context is one of absolute failure and disaster, and extremely detrimental and disastrous for society. Both camps have been and continue to be a failure both individually and collectively. Nothing verifies these points more than the following facts.

In 1986 the Massachusetts Attorney General, Department of Mental Health and Department of Correction were successful in convincing the Legislature to abolish the law, which allowed for the civil commitment of sexually dangerous persons to an “alleged” treatment center. As a result the DOC was given full operational control of treatment. This decision was immediately challenged by the civilly committed “prisoners” at the Center in two cases in Federal Court Brudger v Johnston and Pearson v Fair and during the trial before Judge David Mazzone, which lasted for several months at great cost to the taxpayers of the Commonwealth.

During the trail the then Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, Philip Johnston, testified in great length to the following facts:

1.) That there is no such thing as a sexually dangerous person in the clinical world of mental health.
2.) That there was no treatment for sexually dangerous persons that they had no idea why these persons committed sex crimes.
3.) That sex offenders like most criminals suffered from antisocial personality disorder, which cannot be treated.
4.) That it was his opinion that sex offenders should be dealt with within the criminal justice system and not in a clinical manner.
5.) A Dr. Robert Fine, who at that time was Deputy Commissioner of Forensic Mental Health for the MA DMH, echoed this testimony. He is presently a “profiler” for the United States Secret Service.

As a direct result of their hypocritical testimony M cl. C 123-A was abolished and control of the “Treatment Center” given to the DOC. All of this was and is disturbing to say the least, but even more disturbing and outrageous is the fact that before the formal trial started and throughout it’s entirety, the DOC, assisted by DMH, was quietly and quickly as possible releasing sexual psychopaths out of the Treatment Center - despite warnings from various Treatment Center staff that this would end in disaster. The DOC and DMH were attempting to lower the Treatment Center population to a level whereby they could convince the Legislature to close the place for good.

As a direct result of this outrageous contempt for the safety of the general public, and as predicted, innocent human beings, women, children were slaughtered by the likes of Michael Kelly who raped and murdered at least three (3) women after his release. David Brown, also known as Nathan Bar-Jonah, murdered and cannibalized a young Montana boy after his release at the request of Treatment Center Staff. There were many, many, many more incidents.

As soon as these incidents began, the hypocrites in the DOC, DMH, and the Legislature and the press, who had all conspired and championed the abolishment of M.G.L. c. 123A immediately covered their arses (as they are doing once again with their 40 million dollar scam) by demanding for and reinstating M.G.L. c. 123A, calling again for the life time commitment of sex offenders. (All of this was a total contradiction to their previous sworn testimony in Federal Court.)

Suddenly, sex offenders were once again ‘mentally ill’ and could be ‘treated’. (Indeed, the DOC has invented their own treatment for sex offenders including beatings, isolation in isolation cells, constant verbal and psychological abuse both here and at the Treatment Center.) In an effort to provide this charade of treatment they have and continue to hire private contractors who provide treatment which they claim does not exist; so-called therapists and/or clinicians who have no qualifications, licenses or experience in the field of mental health or treatment of sex offenders. This is done with absolute contempt for prisoners and no concern for public safety. This is a matter of record.

Now, in 2008, the DOC and all their lackeys in the press and legislature, as stated above, are pretending to respond to the increasing suicides trying to cover their arses by setting up these phony mental health tiers and blocks – to cover their arses.

First of all, it is totally insane for anyone to believe that the same individuals, who refer to all prisoners as scumbags and maggots and who are the major cause of these suicides through their constant verbal, physical, and psychological abuse daily, weekly, yearly for decades, now suddenly have great concern for ‘mentally ill’ prisoners and wish to provide quality health care and treatment. Indeed, even as I write, the DOC is implementing new rules, regulations, policies, and procedures, here at MCI Gardner which have never been necessary and that are extremely abusive and punitive in nature and spirit. According to former and present DMH and DOC officials, all of us criminals suffer from recognized mental health illness of “anti-social” personality disorder; therefore we are all mentally ill and should be in mental facilities not prisons.

The DOC recently opened an alleged mental health tier here in Thompson Hall, consisting of 21 cells housing 42 prisoners, a very small percentage (4.2) of prisoners in this facility of over 1,000.

This tier separates the 42 mentally ill prisoners from the general population in living quarters only. They are not separate from general population in any other manner. They receive little or no treatment or counseling. It is plain and simple: a total sham. Only a fool would “believe” that 10, 12 or 20 of these tiers or blocks are going to cost 40 million dollars.

From more than 45 years’ experience of being locked up in this state’s prison system I can assure you all that less than 10% of the 40 million dollars will be used to support this scam while the rest will be directed to DOC staffing, security, hiring more unqualified guards and to support the extensive perks they all receive but which are hidden from public scrutiny.

The bottom line is this: If a person is mentally ill then for a society’s sake they belong in a mental health facility and as far away from the Department of “Correction” as possible. If there is anything in our society that should be abolished it is the penal and juvenile systems as they currently exist. They are, have always been and will always be extremely detrimental to society.
The billions of dollars on DOC failures would best be spent on the root cause of this insanity, which has been recognized and diagnosed as anti-social personality disorder.

I would like to conclude this statement in this manner. It is no surprise to me to learn that this 40 million dollar scam and cover-up by the DOC, the press and various members of the Legislature is being supported by the Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services.

I doubt that there is a prisoner in the Massachusetts prison system past and present who does not have anything but contempt for this state and taxpayer-supported agency, since their appearance well over 35 years ago. They continue to earn the dubious distinction as absolute sellouts and have as such contributed to the existing and extensive abuse within the DOC. They have contributed by avoiding and ignoring abuse, brutality and cruelty inflicted on prisoners and the civilly committed mental patients in the custody and control of the DOC.

Prisoners see and believe that MCLS continues to suck-up to the DOC and other state agencies and officials; looking the other way for some 30 years, while the Commonwealth along with its lackeys in the press have run amuck over the civil and human rights of all prisoners in the Commonwealth.

MCLS is careful to pick and choose issues and prisoners that will not jeopardize its funding. Within the prisoner community they have absolutely no credibility, never have and never will. If there is anything in this state that needs to be abolished in addition to the DOC it is Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services. They are, have always been and will always be extremely detrimental to prisoners and society as a whole.

In closing, I absolutely defy anyone to disprove a single claim in this document from me as false or misleading.

Respectfully submitted,


Albert Gagne, NCCI-Gardner

First-Ever National Survey of Prisoners Shows Widespread Sexual Abuse

Stop Prisoner Rape, Los Angeles, December 16, 2007. A national survey of inmates, released today by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), confirms that sexual abuse plagues American prisons, derailing justice and shattering human dignity.

According to the report, an estimated 60,500 inmates held at state and federal prisons were subjected to sexual abuse in the past year alone.

Today's National Inmate Survey (NIS) is the first of its kind and covers more than 1.3 of the 2.4 million people currently in detention in the United States. Detainees held at county jails, juvenile facilities, and immigration detention centers were not included in the survey, nor were prisoners at half-way houses. The research method used in the new report - asking prisoners directly and anonymously whether they had been subjected to sexual abuse in the past 12 months - sets it apart from previous attempts by the federal government to study the problem, which have relied entirely on data submitted by corrections officials.

"We know from speaking daily with prisoner rape survivors that the vast majority will never file a formal complaint, for fear of retaliation, stigma, or further abuse," said Lovisa Stannow, Executive Director of Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR). "Not surprisingly, today's report establishes a 15 times higher rate of sexual abuse than an analysis of formal inmate complaints over a one-year period, published by the BJS four months ago."

Garrett Cunningham, a prisoner rape survivor from Texas and a member of SPR's Board of Directors, is a case in point. "After being raped by a prison guard, I was devastated and terrified. I felt sure that filing a formal complaint with the perpetrator's colleagues would only have made my situation worse."

In today's report, the BJS identifies the U.S. prisons with the highest and the lowest rates of sexual abuse. Alarmingly, five of the ten worst facilities are prisons run by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). This finding confirms SPR's own data, based on letters the organization has received from some 900 prisoner rape survivors nationwide; 20 percent of these letters come from men and women held in TDCJ facilities.

SPR urges corrections officials across the country to consider today's BJS report a wake-up call. "When the government makes the grave decision to remove a person's liberty, it takes on the responsibility to guarantee his or her physical safety," said Ms. Stannow. "Whether perpetrated by staff or by inmates, sexual abuse in detention is a problem of poor prison policies and practices. It is not an inevitable fact of life behind bars."

An international human rights organization, Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR) is the only group in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to eliminating sexual violence against men, women, and youth in detention. SPR was instrumental in securing passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) of 2003, which mandated the BJS to conduct the NIS and publish the report released today.

For more information, visit www.spr.org or call Lovisa Stannow at 213-384-1400 (ext. 103) or 310-617-4350 (cell).

http://www.spr.org/en/pressreleases/2007/12_16_07.asp

Prisoners’ Rights Violated in U.S

Prisoners in U.S. Suffer Discrimination
Based on Race, Gender & Sexual Orientation
Human Rights Activists Say Prisoners’ Rights Violated in U.S.

PHILADELPHIA, PA [DECEMBER 12] — The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and a coalition of more than 80 prison activists and human rights organizations have issued a report detailing the systemic racism and other forms of discrimination routinely experienced by people of color, women, and sexual minorities in U.S. prisons.

The report, issued to commemorate International Human Rights Day, is part of a larger effort spearheaded by the U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN), which coordinated the work of more than 250 human rights and social justice organizations in preparing a shadow report rebutting the U.S. State Department’s (DOS) periodic report on compliance with United Nations Committee on the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), to which the U.S. is a signatory.

The State Department’s report, which claims great strides in identifying, correcting, and remedying racism and racial discrimination, was quietly submitted to the U.N. last spring and posted without publicity on the Department’s website. It has been characterized by USHRN as a “complete whitewash.”

Among its many conspicuous gaps, the official U.S. report failed to address the fact that Blacks and Hispanics together account for about only one quarter of the general population but make up more than 60 percent of the jail and prison population. According to the latest statistics from the US Department of Justice, as of June 30, 2006, there were 905,600 African Americans and 459,300 Latino/Latinas in prisons and jails.

The AFSC portion of the report notes that Black men comprise 41 percent of all men in custody, and Black and Latina women comprise 34 percent and 16 percent of incarcerated women, respectively. Native Americans, who experience the highest rate of incarceration of any ethnic group in the U.S., received no mention in the State Department report.

Although the State Department report discusses several mechanisms by which it can investigate and prosecute “torture, cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of prisoners,” it only explicitly mentions one instance directly related to racial discrimination in which it provided technical assistance to a corrections department that was segregating prisoners based on race.

In the prison report, AFSC points out that given the tremendous over-representation of people of color within prisons and jails, it is vital that a report on racial discrimination look critically at the means by which those who experience racial discrimination in prisons can receive redress. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly difficult for even the most egregious abuses to be remedied by the courts.

“When people of color constitute just 25 percent of the U.S. population but represent more than 60 percent of people in prison, the government can’t credibly claim that the prison system is operating without racial discrimination,” said Naima Black, National STOPMAX Campaign Coordinator at AFSC.

American Friends Service Committee co-chaired and wrote sections of the report on prisons as part of a broader Criminal Justice Working Group. The report examines a multitude of commonplace violations of Articles 1, 2 and 5 of the Convention in U.S. prisons and jails, including direct testimony from prisoners, and offers specific recommendations.

The report details numerous racial injustices and disparities with regard to: solitary confinement and supermax prisons; access to education; access to appropriate medical and mental health care; rape and sexual assault; preservation of family unity for people of color in prison; Native American prisoners; freedom to practice religion; effects of incarceration practices on the census and re-districting; and the treatment of prisoners in post-Katrina Louisiana.

“This collaborative shadow report provides critical information including data and personal testimonies from which the committee can draw their specific questions,” said Black.

The U.N. committee that monitors compliance with ICERD will meet in February 2008 in Geneva to review reports from around the world, including this report from the United States, and will question the U.S. government on its compliance with the treaty.

To view a copy of the prison report, please visit http://www.stopmax.org/.

To view the full report: http://www.ushrnetwork.org/files/ushrn/images/2008_shadow_report/Shadow_Report_2008_web.pdf.

To view a copy of a summary of the shadow report submitted by the U.S. Human Rights Network, please visit http://lacccenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/shadowrptsummary2008.doc.

# # #

The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service. Its work is based on the belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.

Hospital Quality Care Bill

Below you'll find a snippet from the Mighty Wonderful State Representative Denise Provost of Somerville. Read about her House Bill 2226, and hospital-acquired infections. Many of us know that our loved ones in MA jails/prisons are exposed daily to MRSA-- an antibiotic resistant infection. It is commonplace in correctional facilities due to poor health, poor ventilation, limited access to hot water and soap and the hesitance of jailors to act on this health threat. It only makes the news when guards acquire the infection. In recent years I've called the DPH/Sanitation Offices to discuss the incidence of MRSA 'inside'. While the DPH folks were responsive to me they also acknowledged that they downplay MRSA with the prisoners because they 'over-react'

We all know how imprisonment destroys health. So please call or write to support this bill. Hospital Quality Care Bill. I have filed a bill to improve health care quality in the Commonwealth which aims to address issues of hospital-acquired infections, public notification of so-called 'never events,' and patient notification of potential adverse medical events. The bill also strives to improve physician/patient relationships by allowing physicians to acknowledge a medical error with an apology, without fear of a lawsuit, and would establish 'Patient and Family Councils' to provide patients and their families an opportunity to offer suggestions for the improvement of hospital care. I am working hard for the passage of this important legislation, House bill 2226, which is entitled 'An Act Promoting Health Care Transparency and Consumer/Provider Partnerships, Submitting Written Testimony. I encourage you to submit written testimony to the Committee on Public Health, where the bill was heard, in support of the legislation.

If you choose to write a letter urging the Committee to report the bill out favorably, it should be addressed to the Committee chairs.

The Honorable Susan Fargo
Committee on Public Health, Senate Chair
State House
Room 504
Boston, MA 02133

The Honorable Peter Koutoujian
Committee on Public Health, House Chair
State House
Room 130
Boston, MA 02133

-----

http://www.prisoners.com/dropmrsa.html

MRSA
Prison Disease Infects Prisoners and Guards
By: Chris Holbrook

Pennsylvania prisons have become a greenhouse for a virulent and highly contagious strain of Staphylococcus. The so-called 'MRSA' (for Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureau) strain of bacteria is a fast-growing infection which generally rots through the victims skin. It can be fatal especially to older or weakened victims. The disease spreads readily from person to person, particularly between men forced to share the same tiny prison cell.

In the filthy Pennsylvania prisons MRSA has infected many prisoners. Nobody counted how many or cared much about the disease until it started infecting prison guards. The guards are given an endless supply of rubber gloves to protect them. Prisoners aren't allowed to possess or use such protection.

The medical department in at least one Pennsylvania prison circulated an alert to the staff. It taught the guards how to wash their hands; actually giving step-by-step hand-washing instructions as one might do with a toddler. (Prison guards aren't recognized as being as bright as toddlers.) No similar warning or alert was issued to the prisoners - let 'em rot!

Even with the alert, guards are being infected. At last count, at least 11 guards have suffered from MRSA. Nobody knows how many prisoners have been infected or have died from the disease. We know of cases currently active in several Pennsylvania prisons.

So far, most infections seem to have proven very difficult to treat, but not totally hopeless. In several cases, it's been necessary to hack-out the infected flesh. The medical folks call that 'excising tissue.' What's done is the diseased part of the body is dug out. If they miss a germ or two, the Staph keeps right on growing, rotting whatever it touches. In addition, very powerful medications are administered. They are often pumped directly into the heart in an effort to delay or prevent death.

At least that's what's done for infected guards. Prisoners are occasionally offered two aspirin and a dab of Vaseline to ease the ream-job that's coming. Let 'em rot!

One particularly obnoxious prison guard, Jerry Droppings, a runt who enjoyed demeaning and debasing prisoners, came down with a bad case of MRSA. Maybe he didn't know how to wash his hands. Mr. Droppings quickly became seriously sick. He was hospitalized, had a chunk of infected tissue lopped out and received huge doses of antibiotics and other medications. We have no affection for Mr. Droppings, he's a truly foul human being, but nobody, not even a prison guard, cop or lawyer should suffer from MRSA and its painful complications. We sincerely hope that Mr. Droppings recovers. He has a family who likely hopes to join the imprisonment industry. It's a family business. We sincerely hope that the family isn't infected with the guard's disease.

Guard Droppings had a relative who could read and write. The relative whined about the poor darling's medical condition. It doesn't matter how badly he treated others, the relative thought that he should be treated better. We agree. Two wrongs don't make a right. There was a lot of public gnashing of teeth about the case. Nobody cared about the many prisoners similarly infected. We hope that everybody infected with this virulent infection recovers as well and as quickly as possible. Mr. Droppings and his relative seem mostly interested in money.

The principal reason for the epidemic of MRSA and other diseases in the Pennsylvania prisons is the very poor materials available for routine cleaning of cells, showers, messhalls, visiting rooms and communal areas. There is no effective disinfectant, no scouring powder or scouring pads. There is no effective soap or detergent to sanitize even the toilets and sinks. Nothing is really clean. Complaints to the prison administration are rebuffed.

A few years ago, such cleaning chemicals were readily available. There was far less disease. In fact, the state prison at Huntingdon in central Pennsylvania actually manufactured potent cleaning chemicals for the whole prison system.

Pennsylvania prison guards are such pussies, that they were afraid of the cleaning chemicals. The guards treat prisoners so very badly, that they're terrified of retaliation. If they're that scared, perhaps they should have looked for jobs as hairdressers. The bullies worry that, how about if potent cleaning chemicals were to be thrown on them! What would the poor darlings do then?!

Such things almost never actually happened. When they did, the effects were trivial. The cowardly guards would be better off to worry about the truly serious consequences of infections such as MRSA from having the prisons so filthy.

Pennsylvania prisons now use very small amounts of impotent colored water in place of real cleaning materials. Even that scares some of the more cowardly guards. We know of the case of guard, Mr. 'C.' He's won't let the men use even the watery 'disinfectant' spray. Trembling at the thought that some might be squirted at him, Mr. 'C.' keeps a tight grip on the bottle. Where a toilet must be disinfected, he personally gives the bowl a meager mist of colored water. Diseases will spread, but the cowardly Mr. 'C' is safe from colored water.

It appears likely that the MRSA bacteria was carried into the prisons from veterans returning for the insane Iraq war. Lots of prison guards are so enamored with bullying, killing and feeling important, that they've gone to Iraq in hope of killing helpless civilians. They discovered that it wasn't so easy. Some of the civilians didn't like being invaded. They defended themselves. They shot back. The prison guards pretty quickly quit and scurried home, bringing diseases with them.

Pennsylvania prison guards seem to think that it's a lot safer to abuse prisoners than to invade other people's land. If MRSA isn't eradicated in the prisons, they may be very wrong. Proper cleaning materials would be the first step in the right direction.

For Women Behind Bars, "Health Care" Can Be Deadly

For Women Behind Bars, "Health Care" Can Be Deadly
By Silja J.A. Talvi, Seal Press

Why a book about women in prison?

Readers of Women Behind Bars might ask the logical question of why an entire book should be focused on female incarceration while men are still, by far, the majority of people getting arrested and locked up. To many criminologists and writers who cover prison issues, the percentage of women in prison is so small as to warrant little, if any, attention or analysis. (Indeed, at many of the prison-related conferences that I have attended over the years, prisoners are referred to by the male pronoun almost exclusively.)

This question is entirely valid, and deserves a response. Men do face unique issues and hardships in prison, and the overrepresentation of men of color (especially African Americans), the mentally ill, and poor people in general has been more of an overall focus in my work than women's issues in prison until this point.

The deeper I began to delve into the underlying reasons for the rapid growth of girls and women in lock-up, the more insight I gained into a world that few outsiders see, much less understand. Once I began to pay particularly close attention to the ways in which females in the criminal justice system were portrayed in the media, it became clear to me that stereotypes and judgments about "fallen women" from centuries ago were still holding fast.

There's much more to all of this, of course, from the overt medical neglect of women's chronic health needs; to the prevalence of sexual coercion and abuse in women's detention facilities (primarily at the hands of correctional officers, as opposed to other inmates); to the fact that girls and women enter the criminal justice system with far higher rates of drug abuse, sexual violence, childhood abuse, mental illness, and experiences with homelessness. Women are also being punished heavily with undeserved federal "conspiracy charges" for their general unwillingness (or inability) to "snitch" on their loved ones or friends in drug cases -- to the point that this has began to be known as the "girlfriend problem" in the criminal justice system.

Today, the number of girls and women doing time is utterly unprecedented in U.S. history. In 1977, there were just slightly more than 11,000 women in state or federal prison. By 2004, the number of women in prisons had increased by a breathtaking 757 percent. At the end of 2006, there were 203,100 women in jails, state and federal prisons, plus another 1,094,000 women on probation or parole, for a total of 1.3 million females under some form of correctional supervision. (Another 15,000-20,000 girls are being held in juvenile detention.) While Euro-American women still outnumber any other demographic group in jails and prisons, African American women are four times more likely to be locked up than their Euro-American counterparts. (Collectively, African American women and Latinas represent more than 60 percent of women doing time.)

The following excerpt provides just one woman's story from Women Behind Bars. She did not live to tell it, but I am able to share it with you here.

****

I was already several months into the process of writing when I received an e-mail from a woman by the name of Grace Ortega. Grace had heard about the book project, and wanted to know if she could tell me what happened to her daughter, Gina Muniz, after she was incarcerated for the first (and last) time in her life. In truth, I already had enough women's stories to fill the pages of a few books -- if anything, I was overwhelmed trying to figure out which stories not to include -- but there was something about Grace's letter, the sheer urgency of it, that made me want to talk to her.

In our first conversation, Grace and I talked for two hours -- or, to be more precise, I listened for those two hours. It actually didn't click until a few days after that conversation that something sounded very familiar about what Grace had been telling me in great detail. Sure enough, I had once actually written about Gina, albeit briefly, in an article about the allegations and emerging evidence surrounding shoddy, abusive, and sometimes life-threatening medical "care" in two adjacent women's prisons: Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW) and the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla.

Grace and I stayed in touch, and I made it known that I would be interested in researching the details of her case for Women Behind Bars. I asked her to send me court documents, medical records, prison memos, grievances, or anything else she might have that would enable me to grasp the chronology of events in Gina's life, and to look more deeply into her situation. A few weeks later, a cardboard box the size of an orange crate arrived at my home. Grace had taken my request seriously and literally; from what I could tell, she had sent me absolutely everything she possessed pertaining to her daughter's case.

I didn't actually examine the contents of the box closely until I was already well into a few chapters of this book. When I did finally start to sort through the material, I saw that Grace had included four 8" x 11" color photos of her daughter. I set them down on my kitchen table and just stood there, staring at them. I don't know how much time passed, but I know it was long enough that the images were actually seared into my mind.

When I mentioned earlier that I was haunted by Gina's story, I meant that I have also been haunted by these images. For a time, I actually buried the photos under piles of paper in a strange attempt to block out my emotional reaction to them. It didn't matter; my mind couldn't erase any of it.

As I write this, these pictures are out of hiding, because I can finally give Gina's story a voice. The photograph that I have placed next to me is of her emaciated body, shackled to a bed in a community hospital near CCWF. Another of Gina's photos, which was taken just two months before her arrest on August 8, 1998, is on top of my desk. This is a snapshot of a naturally, strikingly beautiful woman with thick, dark curls framing her wide smile. Gina's warmth and kindness radiate from that picture, just as the one taken just a few weeks before her death conveys the agony of living in a body taken over by cervical cancer, which had started out as an entirely treatable, early-stage illness.

Gina's face in the hospital picture is that of a much, much older woman. The only parts of her that still look young are her hands and long fingers, which resemble a pianist's. Her left arm is shackled to the bed, per the requirement of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that even terminally ill prisoners be shackled to their beds and guarded twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Her right arm tenderly cups the head of her then-eight-year-old daughter, Amanda.

Her eyes give away the intensity of her suffering, which started out as horribly as it ended. When she was first taken to the LA County Jail, Gina began to bleed so profusely that she would go through many sanitary pads in the space of a few minutes; most of the time, she was just left to bleed all over herself and her cell. When her cries got loud enough, jail guards would typically come over and look at her with disgust, and then throw toilet paper rolls into her cell.

All of this went on until Gina passed out while talking to her mother on the phone after nearly eight months of nonstop bleeding in jail. Gina's collapse was apparently what it took for her pleas for medical assistance to be heard. Even then, it would be months before she was examined properly and diagnosed with Stage IIB cervical cancer, which has a high success rate of being treated and stopped in its tracks if it is treated aggressively and consistently.

Gina's pleas for justice, however, were not heeded. She received a life sentence in state prison, with an additional seven years tacked on. A life sentence would seem to indicate that she had committed a heinous crime, and most certainly a crime of violence. But Gina had actually committed a nonviolent act, although even she thought she should be punished for stealing $200 from a fifty-one-year- old Vietnamese American woman. Gina did not have a gun, knife, or any other weapon with her, but she admitted that she "strong-armed" the woman into going to a nearby ATM and giving her the money. Even the victim herself, when the police arrived on the scene, stated that Gina had not hurt her in any manner. Gina hadn't been a career criminal by any stretch of the imagination.

Her only violations were for car-related misdemeanors, including a June 30, 1998 charge for driving without a permit. (Gina did not do jail time, although the incident did go on her record.) What happened that pushed this twenty-seven-year-old, with no history of criminal behavior, to the point of rob- bing someone?

Grace explained to me that Gina's father's death on April 22, 1998, triggered a serious, debilitating spiral of depression in her daughter's life. Although Gina's father had periodically been a heavy cocaine and heroin user, and Grace had left him when Gina was just a child, Gina still adored him and tried to see him as much as possible.

By all accounts, cocaine hadn't even been a part of Gina's life until after her father died. Although she had gotten involved with men who hadn't exactly done right by her, Gina had set her sights on becoming a nurse and paving the way for a good life for Amanda.

Seeing her grief, a much older, married male family member offered his "support" to Gina, and then gave her a taste of a drug that he promised would help her get through the pain. His encouragement of her cocaine use was obviously far from being in Gina's best interest. When her use turned into dependency, he started demanding sexual favors, which she provided to him for a time in exchange for money to buy more drugs.

The "exchange" went on for a few months, until a day when she asked for $200 and this relative demanded another sexual favor. As Gina later admitted to her mother, she was suddenly consumed by hatred and disgust -- toward him and toward herself. She refused his advances, and he in turn refused the money. But Gina's desire for more cocaine overtook her ability to think clearly. As her mom put it, "Gina did something that she would have considered unthinkable" in the not-so-distant past.

A mere surface examination reveals that Gina's poor attempt at a crime was obviously a fumbling act of desperation by a woman addicted to drugs. But that's not how the court saw it. Gina's own defense attorney took Grace's hard-earned money (which he was eventually forced to return when Grace filed a complaint with the California Bar Association), did nothing to argue her case, and then urged Gina to plead guilty in exchange for a short sentence. While the judge was announcing the terms of her sentence, Gina heard the words "life" and "seven years," and anxiously asked her lawyer what was happening.

As a bailiff would later testify, Gina's lawyer had lied to her, telling her that entering a guilty plea would get her only a seven-year sentence, not life in prison. Gina did not find out until she was sent to CCWF that she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison. Medical "decisions" made at some level in the process ensured that she was denied the necessary hysterectomy, radiation, and chemotherapy that would have saved her life. In essence, her already cruel and unwarranted life sentence was hastened into a death sentence over just a few horrible months of pain and suffering, during which she and her mother pleaded constantly for medical intervention and urgent treatment.

It took many months of letter writing, and the volunteer assistance of the San Francisco-based advocacy group Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, for Grace to get her daughter out of a depressing community hospital room under the constant watch of prison guards. Gina wanted to die at home, and so she did. On September 29, 2000, Gina Muniz slipped away in silence, surrounded by her immediate family, just two days after her mother took her home.

Where is the healing or hope in a story like this? Gina was certainly not given the chance to experience either.

Instead, they have manifested themselves in Grace's ability to turn her own grief into advocacy on the part of other women in prison. Grace has traveled across California, testifying before legislators and advocating for compassionate release for terminally ill women in prison so that they do not have to endure anything akin to the needless and slow death that Gina suffered.

Grace still looks at the pictures of her daughter every day, and she worries that her daughter's life will be forgotten entirely or, worse yet, dismissed as the plight of a criminal whose life and death were of no particular significance. "Please," she asked me again at the end of our last conversation, "Please make sure that Gina isn't forgotten."

Silja J.A. Talvi is a senior editor at In These Times. Her work appears in the anthology, "Prison Nation" (Routledge, 2003).

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/66637/

Joint Economic Committee Holds Hearing on the Economic Costs of the Surge in U.S. Prison Populations

On October 4, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee held a hearing entitled "Mass Incarceration in the United States: At What Cost?" The hearing focused on the costs of maintaining a large prison system and the long-term labor market and social consequences of mass incarceration. The hearing also covered whether the increase in the prison population correlates with decreases in crime, and what alternative sentencing strategies and post-prison reentry programs have been the most successful at reducing incarceration rates in states and local communities.

Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) and Committee Vice Chair Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) ran the hearing. Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Bob Casey (D-PA) and Representatives Bobby Scott (D-VA), Philip English (R-PA), and Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) were in attendance.

Witnesses included Dr. Glenn Loury, Economics and Social Sciences Professor at Brown University; Dr. Bruce Western, Director of the Inequality and Social Policy Program at Harvard University; Alphonso Albert, Executive Director of Second Chances; Michael Jacobson, Executive Director of the Vera Institute for Justice; and Pat Nolan, Vice President of Justice Fellowship, Prison Fellowship Ministries. To view the full witness list and submitted testimony, click here.

In his opening statement, Senator Webb explored the enormous economic costs of high incarceration rates and the disproportionate impact on minority communities. Witnesses all discussed the multiple challenges related to the return of incarcerated persons from prisons and jails to their communities and emphasized the importance of reentry programs to help curb the economic and social costs of imprisonment.

"Providing employment and training assistance for ex-offenders is critical to reducing barriers to employment, and it benefits families," said Congresswoman Maloney. "That's why I support the Second Chance Act. Putting more resources into creating economic opportunities that provide alternatives to crime would pay dividends in reducing crime and incarceration, while also strengthening families and communities."

In his remarks, Senator Brownback also stressed the importance of community-based reentry services and substance abuse treatment for people returning from prisons and jails. He spoke in support of the Second Chance Act and expressed his desire to see the bill enacted this year.

"We have an incredible opportunity to greatly improve the way in which this nation's prison systems operate," said Senator Brownback. "The Second Chance Act, which is now pending before Congress will certainly bring much-needed change to the American criminal justice system."

Senator Webb and Representative Scott also expressed their support of the Second Chance Act.

For more information on the SCA, please visit the Re-Entry Policy Council website or contact Sara Paterni.

Medical exploitation

Inmates must not become guinea pigs again

By:

Allen M. Hornblum is an assistant professor of geography and urban studies at Temple University

Osagie K. Obasogie directs the project on bioethics, law and society at the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, Calif.

Any day now the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services may decide to turn back the clock to a time when doctors went unchallenged, medical investigators could do no wrong, and vulnerable people were grist for the research mill.

Last summer, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a controversial report recommending the return of federally funded medical research to our nation's prisons. Propelled by historical amnesia and corporate greed, a resurgence of such research may do much harm.

Although Tuskegee (black sharecroppers), Fernald (orphans), and Willowbrook (retarded children) are infamous examples of how medical researchers exploited vulnerable populations, prisoners were scientists' guinea pigs of choice during the 20th century.

Prisoners across the country were routinely incorporated into dangerous medical experiments that were unthinkable for other populations: testicular transplants and radiation studies, injections of live cancer cells, dioxin slatherings, and exposure to psychotropic chemicals and mind-control agents. University of Pennsylvania researchers set up labs inside Holmesburg Prison for easy access.

Commercial interests, the military and the CIA were behind many of these dubious initiatives. It wasn't until the late 1970s that policymakers curbed these brutal practices.

The IOM now thinks that new "guidelines," institutional "transparency" and increased "monitoring" would safeguard today's prisoners from past transgressions. Such views are wildly optimistic.

Prisons are unusual institutions. Oppressive, paramilitary and sequestered from society, they are the reason the Nuremberg Code's first principle precludes those in "constrained" and "coercive" environments from participating in medical research.

Perhaps even more troubling than the recommendation itself is how the IOM came to it.

First, and most shocking, the IOM admits to having visited only one prison during its two-year investigation. How is it possible to make sound policy decisions without taking a thorough look at the conditions faced by those most affected? By failing to acknowledge that nearly every aspect of prisoners' daily lives - from when to eat to when to sleep - is imposed at the barrel of a gun, the IOM committee makes a mockery of informed consent, medical research's foundational principle.

Second, the committee based its decision on a review of articles about trends in ethics since the late 1970s, when current restrictions on research with prisoners were put in place. But decisions of such consequence cannot be based solely on changes in the academic wind. What also needs to be considered is whether the appalling conditions giving rise to the current protections have been eliminated. And all evidence suggests that they have only gotten worse.

Last, the committee isolates its inquiries from other moral commitments relevant to prisoners' well being - namely, human rights. Vesting internationally agreed upon human rights in every person and creating ethical standards for medical research are two sides of the same coin. But with the wide-ranging human-rights violations in today's prisons - including sexual assault and decrepit living conditions - attempts to isolate medical research from human-rights standards can lead one ethical norm to undermine the other, exposing prisoners to even greater abuse.

Bioethical dilemmas involving prisoners will be with us for some time. South Carolina, for example, is considering a proposal to relieve its shortage of kidneys for transplant by shaving 180 days off inmates' sentences if they agree to become donors.

Human biotechnology also might come into play; given the shortage of eggs available to pursue certain types of stem-cell research, it's not difficult to imagine similar incentives being offered to incarcerated women to become egg donors.

These are complicated issues with remarkably high stakes. Medical research with human subjects can retain its legitimacy only if it recognizes its deep kinship with human rights. Regrettably, the impending Health and Human Services decision to loosen restrictions on prison research leads us in the wrong direction.


Allen M. Hornblum is the author of "Acres of Skin: Human Experimentation at Holmesburg Prison" and "Sentenced to Science: One Black Man's Story of Imprisonment in America" (coming later this year). Osagie K. Obasogie contributes to the blog www.biopoliticaltimes.org.

Using Muscle to Improve Health Care for Prisoners

August 27, 2007 - NY Times
By SOLOMON MOORE

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Last year, shortly after receiving extraordinary powers to overhaul the medical system in California’s prisons, Robert Sillen, armed with a stack of court papers, issued a blunt warning to cabinet officials at the governor’s office in Sacramento.

“Every one of you is subject to being in contempt of court if you thwart my efforts or impede my progress,” said Mr. Sillen, a silver-haired former hospital administrator chosen to carry out the overhaul of the prison medical system as the result of a class-action suit brought by a prison advocacy group.

Backing up his warning, Mr. Sillen handed out copies of a federal court order that named him the health care receiver for the California prison system.

In a subsequent warning, Mr. Sillen threatened to “back up the Brink’s truck” to the state’s treasury, if need be, to finance better medical services for the state’s 173,000 inmates.

State figures show that court-ordered changes to California’s prison system, including those in Mr. Sillen’s health care domain, have cost more than $1.3 billion, and the meter is still running.

For decades, California officials have tried to bring order to the state’s prison system, which is the largest in the nation. There have been lawsuits, special legislative committees and a declaration of a state of emergency by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but never has one person attacked a problem, piece by piece, with such blunt force and disregard for political convention as Mr. Sillen has the prison system.

Mr. Sillen, whose $500,000 annual salary puts him among California’s highest paid public officials, said he had never visited a prison or thought much about the penal system until a recruiter called last year to persuade him to accept what the recruiter called a “mission impossible.”

Now he has the power to hire, fire, raise salaries, build facilities, waive laws, tap the state treasury and have jailed any bureaucrat who tries to thwart him.

“In my opinion, Robert Sillen is not going to be happy until he’s running the entire prison system,” said a state assemblyman, Todd Spitzer, an Orange County Republican and one of Mr. Sillen’s detractors. “He’s a man who has utter disdain for the legislature despite the fact that we’re the appropriate body for budgeting.”

Mr. Sillen asked the federal courts last month to take on the costly — and politically contentious — task of reducing California’s prison population, including the early release of some felons.

The appointment of Mr. Sillen as federal receiver in February 2006 resulted from a class-action lawsuit brought by the Prison Law Office, an advocacy group based at San Quentin. A federal court in the suit found an average of 65 preventable inmate deaths a year in the prison medical system, which the court ruled was tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment.

The California prison medical system was the biggest state agency ever ordered to be taken over by a federal court. The takeover was the most aggressive of several federal interventions into dysfunctional prison operations in California in the past 12 years. The federal courts also involved themselves in the prison system’s mental health, dental care, access for disabled inmates and juvenile detention operations, and in the use of force by corrections officers.

Mr. Sillen, 64, had been the executive director of the Santa Clara County Valley Health and Hospital System. Since beginning his new duties in May 2006, he has attracted hundreds of new employees to the prison medical work force. The medical staff had been experiencing a 20 percent vacancy rate, but Mr. Sillen raised salaries, in some cases by as much as 64 percent. He has siphoned off so many clinicians from other public health agencies that some now face shortages.

Mr. Sillen’s critics say that he has an authoritarian streak that has led him to wrest more control than he was given in his appointment by the court. Most troubling to some of his opponents is Mr. Sillen’s acknowledgment that he has no idea how long the changes will take or what they will cost.

The Prison Law Office filed a complaint in federal court in June saying that Mr. Sillen’s plans have “no concrete details of how any of the goals or objectives are to be accomplished, no real timelines and no metrics.”

In an interview in his office in San Jose, Mr. Sillen dismissed the group’s assertions. “When people ask me how long and how much,” he said, “I have a stock answer: Long. Much.”

Mr. Sillen speaks in rapid-fire, thrust-and-parry sentences often punctuated with profanity. He said his confrontational approach and broad federal powers were essential in trying to turn around an agency that had repeatedly failed to comply with court-ordered changes.

In a response to a demand by state lawmakers that he abide by state budgeting rules, Mr. Sillen wrote in a letter to the California Department of Finance last year that California’s appropriation process was “an immense waste of time (read taxpayer dollars) for little, if any, redeeming value” and that he felt “neither compelled nor obligated” to abide by state budget requirements.

Mr. Sillen says California politicians are reaping what they have sown. He attributed the state’s prison problems to tough-on-crime lawmakers who made political hay out of sentencing laws that filled the state prisons without expanding either the facilities or their services.

He has a standard diatribe concerning the criminal justice system that includes issues like the neglect of poor neighborhoods and the lack of alcohol treatment programs.

“I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the politics,” Mr. Sillen said. “No one gets elected in Sacramento without a platform that says, ‘Let’s get rid of rapists, pedophiles and murderers.’ ”

Mr. Sillen says he has no need to curry public favor because he is backed by the federal court. He adds that, although few will say so publicly, his mission has given some politicians the political cover to embrace changes that might otherwise have been deemed too soft on crime.

Aides to Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said the threat of further court intervention was used to enact a $7.7 billion prison plan in April. The law will expand capacity by means of new construction and the transfer of 8,000 inmates to private facilities outside California.

Mr. Sillen, however, was unimpressed. Having made the governor aware of the need for new prison medical facilities, Mr. Sillen carved $1 billion out of the plan for his own projects and publicly criticized the expansion of prison space without adequate budgeting for medical workers.

After 15 months on the job, Mr. Sillen acknowledges that sick prisoners still suffer in ways deemed unconstitutional by the federal court and points to recent deaths as an indication of a long road ahead. In one case, Jonathan J. Smith, 32, a quadriplegic serving time for armed robbery, died while shackled in a prison van. The van, which had no air-conditioning and no medical staff, became lost for five hours last summer while returning to Centinela State Prison in Imperial County after a doctor’s appointment. Temperatures reached 109 degrees that day, contributing to Mr. Smith’s death, according to corrections officials.

In another case, a child molester, Melvin Fergerson, 61, died in December in his infirmary cell at Avenal State Prison. Prison officials said that Mr. Fergerson, who suffered from heart disease, had sat naked and nearly motionless for two days before his death.

Those incidents were among 552 inmate deaths in the prison system since 2006, according to the most recent state figures. Of those deaths, 161 warranted investigation of potential poor medical practices, according to an internal report. The report marked the first time in years that state officials had conducted thorough reviews of prisoner fatalities.

The poor state of medical care in California’s prisons was evident in the West Block clinic at San Quentin, the state’s oldest penitentiary and the first to be visited by Mr. Sillen. “It was unclean, it was unkempt, and there were no sinks, no phones, no faxes, no way to communicate, no nothing,” Mr. Sillen said. “And that’s the clinic. It was just worse than Third World conditions.”

Mr. Sillen announced that he would put San Quentin “under a microscope” and began a three-month program to address the problems.

He has since built a $1.6 million triage center and has broken ground on a larger, $150 million medical center, but the West Block clinic is such a low priority that it is still in the same small dirty room at the back of a prison gymnasium that had been converted into a dormitory to relieve overcrowding.

Women who work there as nurses avert their eyes as they pass 380 inmates who are lounging on rows of double bunk beds, standing in open showers or sitting on exposed toilets that line one wall of the former gymnasium.

A doctor who visits three times a week sits at a desk next to a toilet. He treats some 80 to 100 inmates each visit and cleans his hands with antibacterial sanitizer. There is still no sink.

US Farmers Using Prison Labor

By Nicole Hill
The Christian Science Monitor

Wednesday 22 August 2007

With tightening restrictions on migrant workers, some farmers are turning to the incarcerated.

Picacho, Arizona - Near this dusty town in southeastern Arizona, Manuel Reyna pitches watermelons into the back of a trailer hitched to a tractor. His father was a migrant farm worker, but growing up, Mr. Reyna never saw himself following his father's footsteps. Now, as an inmate at the Picacho Prison Unit here, Reyna works under the blazing desert sun alongside Mexican farmers the way his father did.

"My dad tried to keep me out of trouble," he says, wearing a bandanna to keep the sweat out of his eyes. "But I always got back into the easy money, because it was faster and a lot more money." He's serving a 6-1/2 year sentence for possession and sale of rock cocaine.

As states increasingly crack down on hiring undocumented workers, western farmers are looking at inmates to harvest their fields. Colorado started sending female inmates to harvest onions, corn, and melons this summer. Iowa is considering a similar program. In Arizona, inmates have been working for private agriculture businesses for almost 20 years. But with legislation signed this summer that would fine employers for knowingly hiring undocumented workers, more farmers are turning to the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) for help.

"We are contacted almost daily by different companies needing labor," says Bruce Farely, manager of the business development unit of Arizona Correctional Industries (ACI). ACI is a state labor program that holds contracts with government and private companies. "Maybe it was labor that was undocumented before, and they don't want to take the risk anymore because of possible consequences, so they are looking to inmate labor as a possible alternative."

Reyna and about 20 other low-risk, nonviolent offenders work at LBJ Farm, a family-owned watermelon farm, as part of ADC's mission to employ every inmate, either behind prison walls or in outside companies. The idea is to help inmates develop job skills and save money for their release. "It helps them really pay their debt back to the folks who have been harmed in society, as well as make adequate preparation for their release back onto the streets." says ADC director Dora Schriro.

If it weren't for a steady flow of inmates year-round, says Jack Dixon, owner of LBJ, one of the largest watermelon farms in the western US, he'd have sold out long ago. Even so, last year 400 acres of his watermelons rotted on the ground - a $640,000 loss - because there weren't enough harvesters. Mr. Dixon had applied for 60 H2-A guest worker visas, but only 14 were approved because of previous visa violations.

"We are in desperate need for hand labor," says Dixon, who started working on the farm when he was 9, alongside mostly migrant workers. "It's hard to get migrant workers up here anymore, with all the laws preventing them. It's not what it used to be," Dixon says. "It's dangerous for them with all the coyote wars and smuggling."

Other farmers wonder if inmates could be their solution. Dixon has received calls from a yellow-squash farmer in Texas inquiring about how to set up an inmate labor contract as well as from another watermelon farmer in Colorado seeking advice on how to manage inmate crews.

For labor-rights activists, federal immigration reform is the only viable solution to worker shortages.

Marc Grossman, spokesman for the United Farm Workers of America, says inmate labor undermines what unionized farmworkers have wanted for years: to be paid based on skill and experience. "It's rather insulting that the state [Arizona] would look so poorly on farm workers that they would attempt to use inmates," Grossman says. There is also the food-safety aspect, he says: Experienced workers understand sanitary harvesting.

"Agriculture does not have a reliable workforce, and the answer does not lie with prison labor," says Paul Simonds of the Western Growers Association, a trade association representing California and Arizona. "This just underscores the need for legislation to be passed to provide a legal, stable workforce." A prison lockdown would be disastrous, he points out, with perishable crops awaiting harvest. Other crops, like asparagus and broccoli, require skilled workers.

Although the ADC is considering innovative solutions - including satellite prisons - to fulfill companies' requests for inmate labor, prison officials agree that, in the end, the demand is too high. "To go into a state where agriculture is worth $9.2 billion and expect to meet a workforce need is impossible," says Katie Decker, spokeswoman for ADC. At any given time only about 3,300 prisoners statewide (out of a prison population of about 37,000) are cleared to work outside.

ACI provides inmates to nine private agricultural companies in Arizona, ranging from a hydroponics greenhouse tomato plant to a green Chile cannery. Unlike other sectors where federal regulations require that inmate workers be paid a prevailing wage and receive worker compensation, agricultural companies can hire state inmates on a contract basis. They must be paid a minimum of $2 per hour. Thirty percent of their wages go to room and board in prison. The rest goes to court-ordered restitution for victims, any child support, and a mandatory savings account. Private companies are required to pay for transportation from the prison to the worksite and for prison guards.

For Reyna, his work on farms over the past couple of years has added $9,000 in his savings account and given him a renewed respect for his Mexican father's lifetime of stoop labor.

At Dixon's farm, it's 103 degrees F. The inmate crews, wearing orange jumpsuits, work in a rhythmic line, calling out the number of the watermelons, and alongside the trailer. Just a few yards away, Mexican workers also work in a line. The inmates will quit at 4 p.m., while the immigrant laborers may work 13-hour days. "We go back, they stay out here," Reyna says. "It really isn't the same."

In the farm's office, watermelons line the counter, and photos of migrant workers hang in dusty frames. When asked why he doesn't sell the farm, Dixon says, "the inmates, the migrants, these people are part of the family - that's why I keep this darn place."

Dixon says he supports the idea of a reformed, guest-worker program that would employ migrant workers during the harvest and return them to Mexico in the winter. But until that happens, he's willing to fight for the workers he's shared the land with for most of his life.

"People are crossing the border because they are starving to death," Dixon says, "I don't care what their status is. If they are hungry and thirsty, I am going to feed them."

"I could sell this and quit," he continues, "But I believe in supporting the American farming industry."

Source URL: http://www.csmonitor.com:80/2007/0822/p14s02-wmgn.html.

Government Study Confirms Systemic Sexual Violence in Detention

PRESS RELEASE

Government Study Confirms Systemic Sexual Violence in Detention - Highlights Serious Under-Reporting of Such Abuse

LOS ANGELES, August 16, 2007. International human rights organization Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR) welcomes the release today of the third annual statistical report on prisoner rape, issued by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The BJS study, which analyzes administrative reports of sexual violence behind bars, found that 6,528 official complaints were filed about such abuse occurring in 2006, or 2.9 allegations per 1,000 inmates. In 2004, the first year for which the BJS published these data, the number of complaints was 5,386.

While offering important insights into the patterns and dynamics of the sexual violence in detention that is reported to corrections officials, the study reveals only a small fraction of the overall problem. The BJS itself is in the process of conducting the first-ever large-scale, nationwide, anonymous inmate survey about sexual violence. In the pre-testing of its survey tool last year, the BJS found that 4.4 percent of inmates had experienced sexual abuse in the preceding 12 months - a rate 15 times higher than that captured in today's analysis of official administrative reports.

"We know for a fact that very few survivors of prisoner rape ever file a formal complaint. By comparing today's report with the early results of the BJS' inmate survey, it becomes clear that serious attempts to understand the problem of sexual violence in detention must go well beyond an analysis of formal reports of abuse," said Lovisa Stannow, Executive Director of SPR. "Survivors contact SPR every day, the vast majority of whom are too afraid or ashamed to report the abuse they have endured."

Today's BJS report also reveals a shocking failure on the part of corrections officials to respond appropriately to the sexual abuse of inmates. The report found that, even in substantiated cases of staff sexual misconduct and harassment of inmates, 76 percent of the survivors were offered no medical treatment or mental health counseling. SPR believes that all survivors of sexual violence in detention should be offered such services, to ensure that physical injuries, acute trauma, and the long-term psychological effect of sexual abuse are addressed.

"Corrections facilities must, as a matter of urgency, make sure that all inmates who have been sexually abused are given an opportunity to begin the healing process, especially when the abusers are the very people charged with protecting them," said Ms. Stannow. "This is not only a matter of human rights, it's about public health. Some 95 percent of inmates eventually return to their communities, bringing with them the full range of their prison experiences, including learned violent behavior, psychological trauma, and infectious disease."

The BJS report, which is based entirely on information provided by corrections officials, also found that officials concluded that "abuse of power" was a factor in only five percent of substantiated cases of staff sexual misconduct. "It's disheartening to see that corrections staff still do not recognize that there is an inherent abuse of power involved in every single one of these cases," said Ms. Stannow. Sexual contact between a corrections official and an inmate is illegal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

SPR is the only non-governmental organization in the country dedicated exclusively to eliminating sexual violence against men, women, and youth in detention. SPR was instrumental in securing the passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in 2003, which mandated the BJS to publish today's report and to undertake the anonymous inmate survey currently underway.

For a copy of the BJS report, "Sexual Violence Reported by Correctional Authorities, 2006," please go to http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/.

For more information, contact Lovisa Stannow at 213-384-1400 (ext. 103).

Survey's focus: prison sexual assaults

Survey's focus: prison sexual assaults
Shelli DeRobertis, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 07/29/2007 12:00:00 AM PDT

CHINO - At least 200 inmates at the California Institution for Men participated last week in a survey about sexual assault behind bars.

About 80,000 inmates at 148 nationwide prisons and 300 jails are expected to take part in the survey, which is being conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The survey's purpose is to study the incident rates of sexual violence amongst inmates - including between inmates and staff - to help reduce sexual assault in detention facilities. The survey stems from the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. It requires annual surveys be conducted in 10 percent of the nation's prisons each year, according to Allen J. Beck, department director and statistician for the Bureau of Justice.

"The act itself is designed to give transparency to what occurs in prison cells," he said. "And through transparency change can occur."

For the past three years, Beck said the bureau has collected data on allegations and substantiated characteristics of when and where the assaults happened, and what the consequences were.

The 2005 survey results reported 6,241 allegations of sexual violence, up from 5,386 in 2004. Of those numbers, 38 percent of allegations involved staff sexual misconduct, 35 percent nonconsensual inmate-on-inmate sexual acts, 17 percent staff harassment and 10 percent abusive inmate-on-inmate sexual contact.

Beck said this most recent survey is expected to be completed by the third week of August. Along with the findings of the survey, the three highest ranking prisons with the most sexual assault incidents will be identified to Congress, he said.

An October congressional hearing in Washington will review the findings, where information from prison administrators is expected to offer insight into the problem that many prisoners shy away from talking about.

But 200 consenting inmates from each randomly selected prison answered questions for the study.

The survey is completely anonymous, Beck said, and structured to take about 25 minutes on a touch screen computer that also offers voice assistance.

Inmates answered questions pertaining to rape or sodomy, which for purposes of the study were classified as the most serious sexual assault, to lesser forms of sexual abuse not involving penetration.

"Inmates are not usually going to come forward with that kind of allegation," said corrections Lt. Mark Hargrove, CIM spokesman, who has been with the department for 20 years.

He said sexual assault allegations by one inmate about another are not frequent at CIM, but the institution trains all inmates and staff on how to report abuse, a process required by .

He said it also treats all sexual misconduct the same, whether the allegation is against a staff member or another inmate.

Lt. Laurence Neff, who manages the sexual violence training at CIM, said each staff member receives four hours of training on how to recognize, deal with and report prison rape.

He said that by raising awareness on the issue it may help victims report sexual assault.
"Men are not so quick to disclose they've been sexually assaulted," he said.

But they are informed of what happens when an allegation of sexual abuse is made, "up to the point we prosecute the individual and present it to the district attorney," Neff said.

He said that regulations are supposed to create an attitude change on sexual violence by also creating a calmer prison environment.

"It informs the inmate population it's not going to be tolerated, and there's means available to that inmate being assaulted," Neff said.

He said correctional officers and the community may be safer for it in the long run.
"They (inmates) ultimately end up assaulting the staff to remove themselves from the sexual assault," Neff said.

Punishment for assaulting an officer requires an inmate to be removed from their cell.
He also said inmates who suffer sexual assault in prison eventually end up in the community.

"Without us providing them the appropriate emotional and physical remedies, they go out in the communities and victimize our families," Neff said.

http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_6490754

Transgender inmate sues state over prison rape claims

July 24, 2007 - Southern Voice

A transgender woman who claims she was repeatedly raped and beaten by a male cell mate went to court this week to challenge a state policy that assigns inmates like her to men's or women's prisons depending on whether they have undergone sex-change surgery. Alexis Giraldo, 30, claims that Folsom State Prison guards ignored her complaints of abuse and returned her to the same cell until a subsequent assault got her placed in protective custody and eventually moved to another facility.

A transgender woman who claims she was repeatedly raped and beaten by a male cell mate went to court this week to challenge a state policy that assigns inmates like her to men's or women's prisons depending on whether they have undergone sex-change surgery.

Alexis Giraldo, 30, claims that Folsom State Prison guards ignored her complaints of abuse and returned her to the same cell until a subsequent assault got her placed in protective custody and eventually moved to another facility.

Giraldo, who was born a man but lives as a woman and takes hormones to feminize her appearance, is suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for emotional distress and violating her constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

"Prisons are violent places, and male prisons are especially violent places," said Greg Walston, a San Francisco lawyer who took on Giraldo's case pro bono. "You take that boiling cauldron and you put one woman in there – which is exactly what happened here – and it's like throwing a fresh piece of meat into a lion's cage."

The San Francisco jury hearing the case has been asked to award Giraldo unspecified damages. Superior Court Judge Ellen Chaitin has been asked to order prison officials to come up with a new system for housing transgender inmates.

The California Attorney General's office, which is representing the corrections department and Folsom staff members also named as defendants in the lawsuit, said Friday that it would not comment on the case.

Briefs filed by the state argue that Giraldo initially was in a consensual sexual relationship with her cell mate in violation of prison policy, did not report specific rape claims, and refused offers to be moved to a different cell. Once she made it clear she was being forced to service her cell mate against her will and strangulation marks were found on her neck, she was removed to protective custody, the state maintains.

"Plaintiff alleges that he informed prison staff on a number of occasions about these events. However, the documentation maintained by prison personnel – including some of the defendants in this case – does not bear out these assertions," the state's brief states.

Several counties in California, including San Francisco, have created separate units specifically for transgender prisoners. But like other states and the federal Bureau of Prisons, California assigns inmates to prisons based on their genitalia rather than physical appearance.

Biological men who dress and act like women but have not had sex reassignment surgery can be assigned to a psychiatric prison like the one to which Giraldo eventually transferred or the general population of a regular men's prison.

Teda Boyll, a retired guard and supervisor in California, testified for Giraldo as an expert witness on Friday, saying that in her opinion Folsom officials failed to adequately investigate Giraldo's concerns and assure her safety.

"There are some warning signs," Boyll said. "When an inmate says, 'I am getting pressured for sex,' it means it is already happened or it is imminent he will have to provide nonconsensual sex to another inmate."

Giraldo was sent to Folsom for shoplifitng and a parole violation in January 2006 and spent three months there before she was transferred to the medical prison. She was paroled earlier this month and is scheduled to testify on Friday afternoon.

Her former cell mate, who is serving a sentence for armed robbery, is also scheduled to testify in the case.

http://www.southernvoice.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=13499

SPR Applauds Expansion of New York's Custodial Sexual Misconduct Statute

SPR Applauds Expansion of New York's Custodial Sexual Misconduct Statute

Stop Prisoner Rape Applauds Expansion of New York's Custodial Sexual Misconduct Statute

Governor Eliot Spitzer has signed into law Chapter 335 of the Laws of 2007, amending New York's custodial sexual misconduct law (at Penal Code Section 130.05) to expand the definition of "employee" to include volunteers and contractors who provide "direct services" to inmates.

"This amendment is critically important," said Lovisa Stannow, Stop Prisoner Rape's Executive Director. "Until now, these employees have been beyond the reach of the sanctions provided under the state's custodial sexual misconduct law."

While the state Legislature stopped short of SPR's proposal to expand coverage to all volunteers and contractors performing services in the state's corrections facilities, Chapter 335 represents a strong step forward in New York's response to the sexual abuse of prisoners. Chapter 335 applies to state and local facilities, and will take effect in November 2007.

NYS Call To ACTION

New York State Officials Hear from People Concerned About Forced Electroshock of Simone D!

Make Sure These Officials Hear from *You* Now!

New York State may have won its court battle to give more forced electroshock to Simone D. inside Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.

But now we are in the court of international public opinion.

And people are speaking out!

Here is a link to an updated alert on the MindFreedom web site with hyperlinks to all four NY officials along with updated news.

It takes you just a moment to e-mail your concern! Go to:

http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/mental-health-abuse/electroshock/simone-d

or use:

http://tinyurl.com/262xma

The offices of all four officials confirm they are are hearing from the public. PLEASE RE-DOUBLE your efforts to contact New York State officials in a civil way.

If you have not contacted these four officials do so now. If you have contacted any and you have not received a satisfactory answer, try again until you do.

You may e-mail or fax at any time. Phone during business hours Eastern Time. KEEP IT UP!!! DON'T STOP!!!

You are having a nonviolent IMPACT! Because of MindFreedom complaints, the web administrator for the New York State Office of Mental Health told us their web feedback form is now fixed.

Remember what Simone D. told New York State, in Spanish: "Electroshock causes more pain! I suffer more from shock treatment!"

So how can the richest country in the history of the planet refuse to provide this Spanish-speaker with mental health team who speaks Spanish... But they can afford a legal fight in court to give her more and more forced electroshock?

Go immediately to this link and ACT NOW:

http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/mental-health-abuse/electroshock/simone-d

or use:

http://tinyurl.com/262xma

KEEP IT UP!!! DON'T STOP!!!

And for extra effort, we've added a fifth New York State official: Please phone up the offices of Senator Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate, and ask in a civil way what her stand is on these human rights violations occurring in her own state:

http://clinton.senate.gov/contact/

When one's life isn't worth the trouble

When one's life isn't worth the trouble

Immigrants have died while in U.S. custody, some because jailers denied them medical treatment.

Even hardliners who wish to round up all 12 million illegal immigrants and ship them back from where they came wouldn't, we hope, want to kill any in the process.

Yet immigrants have died in administrative custody because their jailers failed to provide medication or doctors. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently disclosed 62 people have died in the past three years, far more than the 20 previously known deaths.

While ICE hasn't released information about the deaths, The New York Times learned the circumstances of three of the people -- two of whom perished in Virginia prisons.

Neither Sandra M. Kenley nor Abdolai Sall represent the stereotypes that spring to mind when people talk about illegals. Kenley, a legal permanent resident for 30 years, was detained after returning to the U.S. from a visit to Barbados on two old drug-related convictions that made her subject to exclusion. Sall was arrested during an immigration interview because of an old paperwork snafu.

Both told authorities they had serious health problems and pleaded for their medication.

Deaths from medical neglect aren't supposed to occur in U.S. prisons.

In fact, ICE detention standards state that detainees will undergo a medical exam soon after arrest. Only no one checks to see if the mosaic of public and private jails, prisons and detention centers follow the suggested guidelines.

The Senate, faced with mounting reports of deaths and abuses of detainees, unanimously agreed to amend the current immigration bill and establish an office of detention oversight within the Department of Homeland Security.

Now even that paltry gesture is as dead as the immigration bill and as dead as Kenley and Sall.

This country, under President Bush, has ceded its long-held moral high ground on human rights, a trade-off the administration was willing to accept in its ill-fought "war on terror."

Once one category of people is considered unworthy of humane treatment, it becomes easier to devalue the next group and ignore Sandra Kenley's pleas for her blood pressure medication. She was, after all, an immigrant, even if a legal one.

Who's next?

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/wb/xp-123425

Sciortino: Seek cause of overcrowded jails

I am asking for your support for H. 1723 — “An Act Relative to Incarceration and Its Impact on Public Safety.” I have filed this bill to address the issue of overcrowding in our correctional facilities by looking at its root causes.

Throughout the commonwealth of Massachusetts, prisons and jails are overcrowded. In the first quarter of 2006, the jail populations alone were at 163 percent of their capacity. Over the past six fiscal years, the budget for the DOC has increased by $135.9 million, yet adequate capacity remains a problem. It is clear that a new approach is needed to address overcrowding.

Many of the inmates in the correctional facilities are drug offenders and people with mental illnesses. It is estimated that nearly one in six inmates committed their crimes to support a drug addiction. More than 16 percent of jail inmates suffer from some sort of mental illness, 70 percent of whom were arrested for nonviolent offenses.

When someone is picked up on the streets intoxicated, why are we paying $43,000 per year per person to lock them up rather than providing them with treatment services? At a recent forum I attended, then-DOC Commissioner Dennehy reported that there are approximately 250 people civilly committed every day, with no criminal charge whatsoever, who are there for one reason only: because there aren’t enough detox and treatment beds.

It’s too easy to simply lock these individuals in our jails. They belong in treatment for their illnesses, not in expensive, overcrowded facilities with inadequate services.

All residents are guaranteed basic rights and deserve basic human dignity. This includes people who are free citizens, people who have been victims of crime, the families and children of those imprisoned, and yes, even the people who are imprisoned in our state and county systems.

We have all read the headlines.

• Prisoners being driven mad to the point of suicide by isolation and deprivation.
• Prisoners being held longer than the time they were committed to serve.
• Medical care has been withheld, leading to prisoner illness and death.

I say we have all read the headlines, but in fact there are many stories that are left untold and need to be told. There are people here to testify that can share those stories with you and can give you a real picture of what is going on to their loved ones who are imprisoned.

When our colleagues in the DOC or county corrections share their concerns about overcrowding, we need to ask ourselves whether building more jails and prisons is the answer. I believe it is not. The more we build, the easier it is to simply lock people up without ever asking whether that is an effective way to make our communities safer.

This bill establishes a five-year moratorium on the construction or expansion of jails and prisons. During this time, a special commission will be appointed to study issues and make recommendations related to overcrowding, the effectiveness of incarceration on issues such as mental illness and substance abuse, and alternatives to sentencing for more cost-effective means to reduce overcrowding and ensure public safety.

It is clear that our current strategies for reducing overcrowding are not working. New jails and new prisons are not the answer. More money for the Department of Corrections is not the answer. Incarcerating more of our citizens who are in need of forms of treatment is not the answer. We need to reduce the harmful effects of drug use on our society through preventative substance abuse treatment, not incarceration. We need to better fund treatment for the mentally ill, many of whom are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. We need to understand that overcrowding cannot be solved by building more correctional facilities, and that it requires a fundamental reexamination of why our facilities are overcrowded to begin with.

I ask for your support and favorable passage of this legislation. Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Carl Sciortino, D-Medford, represents parts of Somerville in the House of Representatives. This was testimony given before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.