State urged to complete prison reform

[Joanne98]

State urged to complete prison reform
Pastor wants federal agreement enforced
By ALISON KEPNER, The News Journal

Posted Monday, January 1, 2007

The Rev. Christopher Bullock urged lawmakers Sunday not to let financial concerns be a barrier to reform. (Buy photo)

While criticizing Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's administration for not acknowledging civil rights violations found in a recent federal investigation, the Rev. Christopher Bullock said state officials must reform the prison system immediately.

"Those who are in power need to use their power to do what is right as opposed to what is politically expedient," he said.

Bullock, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in Wilmington, co-founded the coalition with state Sen. Charles Copeland, R-West Farms, following stories in The News Journal in September 2005 that revealed inadequate health care and extraordinarily high death rates, especially from AIDS, in the state's prisons.

On Friday, U.S. Department of Justice investigators released the findings of their nine-month investigation, saying "substantial civil rights violations" -- such as a flesh-eating bacteria that went undiagnosed and untreated in Gander Hill prison, now Young Correctional Institution -- occurred in four state facilities. Regulators identified problems that included inadequate screening and health assessments, inadequate treatment of inmates with infectious diseases, substandard treatment of inmates with serious mental illness and deficiencies in the state's suicide-prevention measures.
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070101/NEWS/701010322/-1/NEWS01

LOOK WHO BLOCKED THE BILL last year. A DEM!

The bill was blocked last year by Sen. James T. Vaughn, D-Clayton, a former Department of Correction commissioner who chairs the Senate Adult and Juvenile Correction Committee. At the time, Vaughn said he wanted to wait until the federal government finished its investigation.

[Joanne98]

1. Seeking Help For Teen Girls In Prison

The number of girls incarcerated at the state women's prison is increasing, and many of them are teenage victims of abuse or neglect awaiting sentencing for nonviolent crimes.

The increase has prompted child advocates to demand improved state services for at-risk girls, including early intervention programs for abused girls, gender-specific programs and alternative placements for girls who break the rules at treatment centers.
"We're not talking about ax murderers," said associate child advocate Mickey Kramer. "These are mostly runaways, shoplifters and truants. They needed our help, but didn't get it. Most of them don't belong in prison."

At the beginning of December, 30 girls aged 14 to 17 were incarcerated at York Correctional Institution in Niantic, according to the state Department of Correction. Nine were awaiting trial. The other 21 were there for crimes ranging from breach of peace to murder.

In comparison, only 11 girls in that age group were being held at York in December 2005.

Advocates believe these girls are not receiving the mental health, education and behavioral health services they need at York and accuse the state, especially the state Department of Children and Families, of failing them.

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-yorkgirls0101.artjan01,0,4956775.story?coll=hc-headlines-local

[Joanne98]

2. Ex-prison manager files lawsuit

Ex-prison manager files lawsuit

Monday, January 1, 2007


By MICHAEL RISPOLI
Gannett State Bureau

TRENTON
A former business manager at East Jersey State Prison has filed a whistle-blower lawsuit claiming the state Department of Corrections wrongly steered millions of dollars in contracts to an Evesham-based computer firm.

Edward Guz, who recently retired from state government after 36 years of work, sued in early November after voicing numerous complaints over the course of five years.

The suit alleges former Emtec Inc. employees who were working for the DOC approved and supervised cable installations and computer purchases by the firm that led to overcharging and excessive costs for the state, instead of awarding a contract for the lowest costs.

"This established a prior employee/employer relationship . . . which might have resulted in the apparent preferential treatment in determining the efficacy and cost worthiness" of Corrections Department projects, the suit claims.

David Singer, vice president of marketing and public sector for Emtec, which also maintains offices in Springfield and four other states, would not comment on the suit but said the contracts were "fairly and competitively awarded."

Guz wrote a letter to Kathleen Wiechnick, the DOC's ethics liaison officer, citing these irregularities but was told a month later the claims "cannot be substantiated" after they were investigated by the DOC's Special Investigation Unit.

Guz then filed for retrieval of the documents for the investigation, and after reading the investigation, believed his claim was not addressed properly.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070101/NEWS01/701010344/1006

[Joanne98]

3. Chino prison remains locked down

Chino prison remains locked down
Officials assess security after a brawl involving 200 inmates leaves seven hospitalized. The racial riot doesn't appear to be gang related.
By Joe Mozingo, Times Staff Writer.
January 1, 2007


The weekend riot at Chino state prison erupted after two inmates — a Latino and an African American — began fighting in a recreation yard, and others, watching from surrounding dormitories, followed suit, clashing along racial lines that have racked the state prison system for decades, prison officials said Sunday.

"We believe it was just a spontaneous thing that occurred after the fight on the yard," he said. The prison, on 2,500 acres of land abutting the Chino Hills in Riverside County, remained on lockdown Sunday as officials assessed security.

Of the 27 inmates taken to hospitals Saturday, 20 were released back to Chino. The prisoner thought to be the most seriously injured suffered a stab wound, a broken jaw and a laceration to the head, and was recovering in the prison hospital.

Experts have warned that the severe overcrowding in the state's prison system heightens the racial tensions. Built in 1941 for 3,160 inmates, the California Institute for Men in Chino now holds more than twice that.

The medium-security facility where the riot occurred — Reception Center West — has 1,381 prisoners in five dormitories.

Hargrove said prisoners are not normally separated by race in that facility — except after a riot like Saturday's. The facility is 27% black, 31% white, 39% Latino.

Of the 27 injured, 24 were African American, including all seven of those still hospitalized.

In recent years, racial fighting has also erupted in the Los Angeles County jail system. In February, more than 2,000 inmates at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic went on a rampage that left one dead and 50 injured. A black inmate was killed in Men's Central Jail downtown in a racially motivated fight the next week.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed spending $10.9 billion to add 78,000 beds to state prisons and county jails.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-prison1jan01,1,2071099.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california&ctrack=1&cset=true
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