Fascinating blogger update on the jailed rape victim....and more info on Armor Correctional..

[madfloridian]

and other good stuff in Florida. I have decided to look for more blog stuff, and the news seems to be repeating the same old same old. This blog ties Armor and MCCI and Florida's rush to privatize without going with competitive bids.

Note they deny anything about the religious reason for denying the pill. Ok, I serously doubt Mom made that up. I mean, come on. The girl had been raped, and I doubt she had the presence of mind to make up something like this.

The blogger sums the stuff about Armor and MCCI up this way:

The medical services at the jail are run by Armor Correctional Health Services an affiliate of Medical Care Consortium, Inc., which has donated $18,000 to Republicans and $4,000 to conservative Democrats since its founding in 1998, according to opensecrets.org.

One lobbyist for MCCI is Sports Illustrated writer Don Yaeger, who was suspected of doing favors for Jeb Bush's second Secretary of Corrections, James Crosby. Why would he do such a thing? Because they wanted the big state contracts being offered up by Jeb's drive to privatize the whole friggin state apparatus. There was a requirement, though, that a company had to manage the health of 10,000 inmates for a year. Managing Hillsborough county's jail was just a step along the path to a bigger payday, and MCCI tried to get the state to lift the 10,000 head requirement based on the Hillsborough gig--which Armor bid on three days after being founded and won despite not being the lowest bidder for the job and submitting MCCI's financials instead of its own. Hillsborough is, of course, where the young woman was detained and denied the medical treatment prescribed by her doctor. It was also inside Katherine Harris's old district and one of her biggest supporters, both politically and financially, was Don Yaeger.

What does this all mean? It means that a near-maniacal belief in the power of privatization to make life better, the appointment of corrupt bastards, connections to dirty lobbyists and fucking over the people you're supposed to help aren't simply aspects of the George W. Bush administration. It seems to run in the family.

This is interesting stuff.

There is just loads and loads of finger pointing.

http://thelastduchess.blogspot.com/2007/01/update-tampa-officials-apologize-to.html

Off to find more blog stuff. We can not let this drop.

[madfloridian]

1. And an opposing view from a religious blog...

Not quoting from it, as it upsets me too much.

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=131443

Most posting there think that pill is wrong even for a rape victim.

[Cerridwen]

2. Let me guess before I go wade through that thread...

the "child" should not be punished because of the way it was conceived

a woman's most sacred duty is to bear children

a truly sacred woman would get past how the "child" was conceived and not blame the "child" for the actions of the "father"

the woman's only role as a baby-maker trumps all

there is little or no discussion of what this can do to a woman's health; physical or otherwise; it's all about the "baby"

it's not the "baby's" fault but there are some comments about how the woman managed to get herself raped.

How'd I do? I'll go look now.

ETA: Yay! I was wrong. They're discussing whether or not the pill causes an abortion and whether or not one can impose one's religious beliefs on another given a particular job description. Sometimes I love to be wrong. :D

[madfloridian]

6. I wish you were wrong, but you're not.

Sadly, it is pretty bad. :hi:

[madfloridian]

3. Who is Armor Correctional Services....more from another blog.

http://moderateleft.com/?p=3025

"Okay, sometimes you notice something that takes you off in a direction you weren’t expecting to go.
As I previously noted, the jailed-rape-victim story Robin drew my attention to is horrible. And it’s pretty awful across the board, from the decision to jail a rape victim over a juvenile warrant to the refusal of jail medical officials to allow her to take Emergency Contraception, because it was against the medical staffer’s religion.

It was in looking at that part of the story that I saw something that caught my eye. It was in this report from the St. Petersburg Times:

"Debbie Carter, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, said she couldn’t comment on the situation because medical information is private. But she said medical service policies are set by Armor Correctional Health Services, which contracts with the jail."

Armor’s corporate offices were closed late Monday when the St. Petersburg Times tried to reach a spokesperson.

Now, that’s interesting. The health care provider is a private contractor. Now, perhaps this was just one random nurse, someone who will be fired soon.

Perhaps. But Armor Correctional Health Services’ meteoric rise indicates its position may be less about competence, and more about connections."

It refers to this cached article.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:ztjvRAEDQ2AJ:realcostofprisons.org/blog/archives/2005/11/fl_browardbased.html+Armor+Correctional+Health+Services&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4

And one of their heads is Florida's new Surgeon General.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7006187421

[Ian David]

4. Keep working this up!

See if there's a connection between the prison and one of those faith-based ministry programs.

[madfloridian]

5. Rape victim plans to talk about her situation after the rapist is caught.

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/breaking_news/16590932.htm

"TAMPA, Florida - The 21-year-old college student thrown in jail on an old warrant only hours she reported being raped plans to talk about her ordeal, but only after she helps police catch her attacker, her mother said Wednesday.

"That is her whole focus right now," the girl's mother said. The Associated Press is withholding the names of both mother and daughter because the crime is a sexual assault.

"She knows this has happened to others ... and she wants to make sure she is the last one it ever happens to again," the mother said in a phone interview."

I am alarmed that the jail is denying they withheld the medicine. Saying they did not know is saying the police are not credible. Finger pointing.

"The jail employee has denied the allegation through an attorney. Her attorney said the employee did not have the required authorization to give the pill." To that I say BS.

[madfloridian]

7. Update..from USA Today. Says she begged and cried for the pill.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-31-jailed_x.htm?csp=34

"The University of South Florida student told police she was attacked Saturday as she walked to her car. She called police about 3:30 p.m., nearly two hours later, McElroy says.

Police took her to a crisis center, where she was examined and given one dose of emergency contraception. She then tried to help an officer pinpoint the location of the attack, but it was dark, and she could not, McElroy says.

By that time, police had discovered a felony warrant accusing the woman of not paying $4,585 restitution for a crime committed in 2003, when she was 17. They took her to jail. Moore says the money had been paid.

The next day, Moore says, "She was not allowed to take her morning-after pill that morning, even though she was crying and begging for it. The nurse didn't want to give her the pills because it was against (the worker's) religion."

She got the drug Monday, he says, and was released about 5 p.m."

Has anyone heard why they jailed her for two days?

The article also mentions the Kansas City, MO incident about the miscarriage.

[madfloridian]

8. Sheriff's office claims no wrongdoing.

http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB8CIC0OXE.html

"Religious Aspect Disputed

The woman's family, already incensed that she was arrested after just reporting a rape, told the media that the contraceptive pill was withheld because of the nurse's religious beliefs. That was not true, Parrish said.

"The break in communication resulted in the medical staff being unaware of the medication," he said. The second booking deputy, "just trying to be helpful," didn't know about the circumstances in this case, he said.

The ordeal has prompted Tampa police to revisit policy on jailing victims of violent crimes on minor warrants and forced the review of the allegations at the jail's infirmary.

Parrish said the three-day investigation turned up no wrongdoing. No one was disciplined and no changes were made to the existing jail booking procedure, he said.

"We have a good procedure in place," he said. That's not to say it won't happen again. "People make mistakes," he said."

They just made a mistake.

And I have swampland to sell you.

And she's a victim of the system all over again.