Valentine's Day SURPRISE! Men join Women in Hunger strike: Arpaio's prisoners demand food justice.

( Solidarity Action outside Estrella Jail: circa 2012)

This is really remarkable, what's been taking place at the county jail - 

the prisoners are organizing and being heard!!!

Here's my initial blog post about the hunger strikers at Estrella Jail. If anyone has any updates, hit me here: Peggy Plews arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com or 480-580-6807.
 
Where the hell is the County Health Department and all the right-to-lifers who love Sheriff Joe? A woman lost her unborn child to this man's rotten food - that's what this is about. Rocks, hair, spit, mold, and disease that gets ignored by medical staff - that's what people get in their hot meals, and why they're protesting. Check it all out below:

ESTRELLA HUNGER STRIKE UPDATE 

(email from a friend of prisoner Rebekah Mellon's on SAT AM 02/15)

 
 
 "The Ladies in Cell Block C100 continued on with their Hunger strike until Thursday night. They told me they weren't even feeling all that hungry. They were sad that they took Rebekah away and were very grateful to have someone to just listen and believe them about the food. The ladies were just fighting for safe food because their are a lot of people in there who can not afford canteen so they have to eat the jail food and when it's moldy and makes you sick that is not right.

Rebekah is still in solitary confinement and she ended up accepting her food Wednesday Night. The Guards just through her food in her cell through a slot... She says it's so quiet and completely closed off from everything. 23 hours of dark quiet isolation from everyone. All because she took a stand and said I refuse to eat moldy food. Rebekah even spoke to ----- who told her that over the weekend the carrots missed there rotation causing contamination of all the food on the plate because the carrots were touching the other food on the plate. So they had a reason for their Hunger Strike, rotten carrots. No one should be forced to eat unsafe food.

So when I spoke again to the ladies in C100 cell block they were just so happy to hear that someone really believed them. That's all they wanted was someone to look past what they have done and say they are in fact Human Beings and they deserve the right to have food that is not rotten and moldy.

So the last I heard is Rebekah is still in solitary confinement. That was Friday Morning around 8 am. The other inmates I last spoke to Thursday Night and that was when I found out they were still going strong with the Hunger Strike and I told them If they felt the food was safe they should accept it so maybe Rebekah could get placed back with them again. They miss Rebekah and like I said they just wanted safe food to eat and someone to listen about the deplorable conditions of Sheriff Joe."

-------------------

Then I found that this was posted to AZCentral on Friday, Valentine's Day: HOORAY!!! Execpt for this part, at the end of this article: 

"Arpaio said Friday that he now has another idea for what to do with the rejected food — he will give it to the inmates in the veterans wing."

What's the deal with giving the rejected, spoiled food to the Veterans, Sheriff Joe? I think it's time you retire.

In any case, keep it up everyone! You have people out here behind you - friends and family, spread the word!

Male inmates join food strike at county jails

By Megan Cassidy  
The Arizona Republic-12 News, Breaking News Team 

Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:59 PM
 

Some male inmates at a Maricopa County jail are joining in a food strike initiated by their female counterparts earlier this week.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced Wednesday that nine women at Estrella Jail were refusing to eat dinner, and he attributed the fast to a new all-vegetarian menu. Officials on Friday said women are still protesting the food.

Then, on Thursday evening, a reported 90 men from the Durango Jail on Gibson Lane protested their evening meal.

Of the 90 who didn’t eat dinner, Arpaio said, 89 did accept brunch, which included a peanut-butter sandwich. The same trend was reported in the women’s facility, as well.

One Durango inmate who joined the protest said the menwant better quality food.

An inmate who identified himself as Mathew Hardy said that he and various inmates have been to several other jails in Arizona and that they’ve never encountered such bad food.

“My dogs eat better food than what we’re fed here,” Hardy said. “We’re not asking for great food, just better than we get.”

Hardy said there have been isolated incidents of rocks in food and a clump of hair found in a peanut-butter packet.

Hardy said that he plans to continue the strike and that a higher quality or quantity of food would make him eat again. The inmates are restricted to two meals a day.

Hardy denied that he took his early meal on Friday and said that he knows of at least a few others who didn’t.

After Hardy’s interview, jail officials reconfirmed that only one man refused his brunch packet.

That man identified himself as Prentis Bey, although jail officials say his last name is James.

Bey said the motivation for his hunger strike was in solidarity with the women: “If a woman does it, I’m gonna do it. That’s what men are supposed to do.”

Bey said he was unaware that he was the lone inmate who didn’t accept the brunch.

Arpaio said that the hot meal of the day consists of soy, oil, a vegetable, potatoes, cookies, bread and powdered milk and that the daily intake is 2,600 calories.

Arpaio said Friday that he now has another idea for what to do with the rejected food — he will give it to the inmates in the veterans wing.

 

Arpaio's deaths in custody: settling Deborah Braillard.

This is hardly justice for what the MCSO did to this woman and her family, and to the many who never manage to hold them responsible for abuse, neglect, and the conditions of confinement. I want to know what happens to the employees most culpable for her death...including Arpaio - does this mean the county (read: the taxpayers)  covers the civil liability, and the people who actually killed her get off scott free? I never even heard anything about personnel being disciplined in this case...

Veteran's Day Phoenix, 2012.

------------------------------

Maricopa County OKs $3.25M settlement in inmate death

http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20121120mcso-inmate-death-settlement.html

By JJ HensleyThe Republic | azcentral.comTue Nov 20, 2012 10:00 AM

Maricopa County on Tuesday approved paying $3.25 million to settle a lawsuit over the 2005 death of a diabetic inmate.

County supervisors, by a 3-1 vote, approved the on-again, off-again settlement involving Deborah Braillard.

The settlement was scheduled to be approved in mid-October, but the vote was postponed after an anti-Sheriff Joe Arpaio protest disrupted a meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors as the settlement was being considered. At a subsequent meeting, the supervisors deadlocked 2-2, killing the deal and setting the stage for the case to go back to trial.

The county already had spent $2.2 million defending the case.

The lawsuit was filed in 2006 by Braillard’s family after the 46-year-old woman died of complications of diabetes after being booked into the Fourth Avenue Jail on Jan.1, 2005. The lawsuit targets Maricopa County, the Sheriff’s Office and Correctional Health Services, a taxpayer-funded agency that treats county-jail inmates.

Jail health-care workers had noted Braillard’s condition in prior bookings but failed to do so when she was booked on suspicion of drug possession. When she became incoherent while in custody, employees attributed her symptoms to drug withdrawal. The symptoms were, in fact, caused by her diabetes, which went untreated.

In September, a Pinal County Superior Court judge issued a pretrial ruling saying there was sufficient evidence in the case to allow Braillard’s family to be awarded punitive damages if they prevail in the lawsuit, potentially exposing Maricopa County to more legal liability.

But after plaintiffs’ testimonies were completed, and while defense testimonies were under way, the two sides reached the $3.25 million settlement agreement."

 ------------

 And this was what the court had to say about the MCSO jail that killed this poor woman. Not enough has really changed since then, unfortunately... 

Federal Judge Found a Litany of Inhumane Problems in Joe Arpaio's Jails

Phoenix New Times 
October 17, 2008
By John Dickerson

In his ruling Thursday against Sheriff Joe Arpaio, U.S. District Judge Neil Wake cited a litany of unconstitutional problems in county jails: inadequate medical care, poor food, chronic overcrowding, and indifference to inmate health concerns.

Jail medical personnel's prescribing of a Soviet-era drug that causes tremors, spasms and "potentially permanent and disfiguring involuntary movements around the face" was another jail deficiency mentioned in Wake's 83-page "conclusion of law."

The judge's decision in the landmark Graves v. Arpaio case (formerly Hart v. Arpaio and Hart v. Hill) came after he reviewed three weeks of court testimony and thousands of pages of records. Many of the same complaints the judge listed were outlined last December in New Times' story “Inhumanity Has a Price.”
Sadly, the long list of violations in the ruling involved hundreds of inmates who endured cruel and unusual conditions under Joe Arpaio's watch. Some died as a result.

Wake noted that the "Eighth Amendment provides inmates with a right to safe conditions of confinement, including an adequate level of personal security.”

Specifically, failure to ensure this constitutional right led to inmate Robert Cotton's beating death, and to inmate Jeremy Flanders' near death following a jail assault.

Another problem spotlighted by Wake was that Arpaio’s jails do “not consistently ensure that all pretrial detainees actually receive all prescribed medications as ordered.” Another was that the jails' "inadequate medical records may create a risk of unnecessary pain and suffering."

These particular deficiencies cost Deborah Braillard her life when she was denied insulin for her diabetes.
Asked for a comment about the ruling, sheriff's spokesman Paul Chagolla responded, not surprisingly, with an accusation against New Times: "Yellow Journalist: You must be gleaning information from reputable reporters." We're not sure what that means, since New Times was the first to report on Wake's ruling Wednesday.

The sheriff did issue a press release about the ruling, amazingly claiming that it was a victory for him. "This judgment reinforces the excellent work being performed by the detention staff, and we all are always committed to improving the jail system wherever possible,” Arpaio was quoted as saying.

The judge's order should change a number of things in Arpaio's jails. Among them: green baloney, filthy living conditions, and broken plumbing. The order specifically requires Arpaio to address severe overcrowding at the Fourth Avenue Jail, where as many as 35 inmates can be crammed into one cell -- without beds -- for as long as 72 hours.

Subjecting certain detainees to extreme temperatures will no longer be allowed under the order, which should mean that Tent City cannot be as widely used as it is now.

For a look at Wake's entire 83-page order, click here. Highlights from his voluminous list of unconstitutional jail problems are listed below:

Medical Care

* "Prison officials show deliberate indifference to serious medical needs if prisoners are unable to make their medical problems known to the medical staff. Access to the medical staff has no meaning if the medical staff is not competent to deal with the prisoners’ problems. The medical staff must be competent to examine prisoners and diagnose illnesses. It must be able to treat medical problems or refer prisoners to others who can.”

* “The Eighth Amendment prohibits deliberate indifference not only to an inmate’s current health problems, but also to conditions of confinement that are very likely to cause future serious illness and needless suffering...Budgetary constraints do not justify delay in treatment for a serious medical need.”

* “Pretrial detainees frequently are denied access to adequate medical, mental health, and dental care because they do not receive a timely in-person assessment of the urgency of their need for treatment.”

* "Inadequate medical records may create a risk of unnecessary pain and suffering in violation of the Eighth Amendment."

* “Thorazine is an antipsychotic medication with potentially severe and permanent side effects, including extremely painful involuntary muscle spasms of the neck, tongue, eyes or other muscles, a profound restlessness and constant movement of the feet and legs, drug-induced Parkinsonism (a resting tremor with some muscle rigidity), and tardive diskenesia (potentially permanent and disfiguring involuntary movements around the face). Although Correctional Health Services witnesses testified they would not prescribe thorazine as a first line of treatment, in fact, Correctional Health Services has prescribed thorazine for many psychotic, and even some not psychotic, pretrial detainees without justification for its use. Correctional Health Services psychiatrists sometimes prescribe thorazine as a sleep aid.”

* “Clinicians at the Maricopa County Jails often cannot provide a professional medical judgment because Correctional Health Services does not have a medical record and information system capable of timely providing health care professionals with the information they need to diagnose and treat pretrial detainees appropriately, including laboratory results and results of specialty consults.”

* “Correctional Health Services does not maintain a list of pretrial detainees with chronic diseases and cannot readily determine where they are housed and what medications have been prescribed for them.”
* "Systemic deficiencies in the screening process significantly impair continuity of care and result in failure to identify pretrial detainees with immediate medical needs."

Overcrowding

* At times, the court holding cells [at the Madison Street Jail] are so overcrowded that pretrial detainees do not have room to sit or adequate access to toilet and sink facilities. Overcrowding in the court holding cells causes sanitation problems and health risks to pretrial detainees. Overcrowding in the court holding cells at Madison violates pretrial detainees’ constitutional rights.

* “Often, substantially more than thirty-five pretrial detainees are held in one cell [in the Fourth Avenue Jail holding area]. At times, intake holding cells are so overcrowded that there is not room for all inmates to sit on benches, and at times there is not room for all inmates to sit anywhere, even on the floor. At times, inmates sleep on the concrete floor, and sometimes there is not enough room for inmates to sleep on the floor without coming into physical contact with other inmates. At times, the intake holding cells are too crowded for inmates to move to use the toilet and sink. Overcrowding in the 4th Avenue Intake holding cells violates pretrial detainees’ constitutional rights.”

* “From June 1, 2007, through May 31, 2008, 93,065 pretrial detainees were booked into [Fourth] Avenue Intake. Of these, 21,987 (24%) were in intake more than twenty-four hours, 1,910 were in intake more than forty-eight hours, and 358 inmates were in intake more than seventy-two hours."

* “Regardless of the length of time a pretrial detainee remains in the intake process, Defendant Arpaio does not provide the pretrial detainee with a bed and blanket unless the pretrial detainee is placed in an isolation cell. As previously found, intake holding cells often are overcrowded, without room for all inmates to sit, sleep, or move to use the toilet and sink. At times, the intake holding cells are extremely dirty, and the sinks and toilets unsanitary and inoperable.

At times, the intake holding cells do not have toilet paper, and pretrial detainees are not provided with toilet paper when they request it. At times, the intake holding cells do not have soap for pretrial detainees to wash their hands after using the toilet. During intake, inmates usually have no access to a shower until they receive their jail uniforms. Some inmates have not been permitted to take a shower in intake before putting on their jail uniforms. When inmates are brought into intake, usually little is known about their mental and physical conditions, sexual orientation, and security threat levels."

* "During intake, repeat offenders charged with serious violent crimes may be placed in holding cells with individuals charged with DUI or criminal speeding. There are no panic buttons or intercom systems in the intake holding cells. Pretrial detainees placed in intake holding cells usually can communicate with a detention officer only when the door is opened to move pretrial detainees in or out of a holding cell."

* "Although security cameras record activity within intake holding cells, detention officers do not continuously watch the security cameras. Security staff provide only minimal visual and audio supervision of the intake holding cells. Detention officers do not conduct routine security walks on a regular basis in the intake areas."

* "Detention officers do not continuously monitor the intake holding cells. The intake incident reports do not include every incident that occurs in the intake holding cells, even some that require pretrial detainees to receive medical treatment. Defendant Arpaio does not consistently take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the pretrial detainees during the intake process, which constitutes a current and ongoing violation of pretrial detainees’ constitutional rights."

"Overcrowding [in general] can violate the Eighth Amendment if it results in specific effects that form the basis for [a] violation, such as by causing increased violence, diluting constitutionally required services to the extent that they fall below the minimum [constitutional] standards, or by reaching a level “unfit for human habitation.”

Sanitation

* “Rats and/or mice remain a chronic problem in Maricopa County Jails, which Defendant Arpaio has made some efforts to eradicate. Cells are not consistently cleaned and sanitized prior to occupancy by pretrial detainees thereby causing an unconstitutional health risk…There are, therefore, current and ongoing violations of pretrial detainees’ constitutional rights."

* “If a prison’s plumbing is in such disrepair that it deprives inmates of basic elements of hygiene and seriously threatens their physical and mental well-being, it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.”

SOS: ASPC-Perryville Conditions of Confinement.

September 20, 2012 
PERRYVILLE UPDATE: 

My friend Christy, a prisoner out at Perryville / Santa Cruz, dropped me a letter late last week that just came in yesterday. It was dated 9/14/12. Here's the update:

"I was called up to the Deputy Warden's office to talk about my kites. Here is what has been done:

Water was turned down (hot water off)
Coolers were purchased but they ran out of money to install them so that is still a problem
I was given tape to tape my vent for roaches
the exterminator is supposed to come out & spray inside and out
the back window is still broken does not close (we have a bag with tape covering it)
they power-washed the showers 
we still only have 2 showers working - the lady who was fixing them was out here on 9/11...
the doors are still having to be keyed for a total of 48 rooms - that is a fire hazard!"

All that happened in response to earlier complaints filed by her and a few of the other women prisoners, and while I brought some things to the  DOC's attention a couple of weeks ago, this happened before I made the following post which had new information, so I can't really claim the credit for getting them to clean things up there. Christy and these women who protested their conditions of confinement have my respect for their courage and persistence.

I plan to organize a prison watching group for Perryville, soon, so stay tuned.


Peggy Plews

----------Original post (9/16/12)----------

I received this anonymous letter this past week from ASPC-Perryville/Santa Cruz yard, and have since challenged Richard Pratt, the Director of Health Services for the AZ DOC, to take the lead in cleaning up the place since so many chronically and critically ill women are trying to survive more than just their sentences under these conditions. I also asked him to set me up with a tour - suggesting we go together unannounced, if things are really as hunky dory at Perryville as they want me to believe. We'll see what he says once he gets a chance to respond. I'm probably now considered an external Security Threat Group leader, so my chances of getting in - sans the orange jumpsuit and chains the DOC would no doubt like to see me in - may not be too good.

In addition to the letter below from Santa Cruz last week, I received another one the week before from the same yard stating that there's a huge roach infestation problem that wasn't mentioned below, as creatures can easily enter through the cracks in the walls and window sills. 

Furthermore, I've been told by several sources that many women haven't been getting their medications for most of the time that Wexford has been in charge of medical services - that's been since the beginning of July. Hopefully, Wexford's brilliant administrators have finally figured out how to get their drugs to Arizona from Pennsylvania (or Columbia, or China, or wherever they're really importing their prescriptions from).

Also not articulated in the letter below is my concern about the high rate of suicide and deaths from sheer neglect at ASPC-Perryville. Most of those have occurred on Lumley yard, though, not Santa Cruz. Lumley is the maximum security yard where female prisoners who are seriously mentally ill, defiant, assaultive, or on death row are typically held in isolation cells. The ACLU's lawsuit Parsons v Ryan enumerates many of the additional concerns I have about the conditions of confinement and medical/mental health care for the women across the prison complex. Lumley is where Marcia Powell was killed by the desert sun after being left in an outdoor cage for four hours - theoretically while on a suicide watch.

I'm planning to set up a "Perryville Prison Watch 101" meeting this fall for community members who are interested in bettering the chances these women have of surviving prison and coming out able to lead lives as "responsible citizens" again; we aren't going to change any of this without help from more of the ordinary People out here who believe this kind of abuse and neglect - in our names, with our money - is unacceptable. And for Women's History Month in March 2013 we'll be celebrating the history of women's resistance in prison. Stay tuned for more on all that.

Remembering some of the women who have died out at Perryville, the following photos were taken from a mural laid out by community members in front of the Phoenix Art Museum for Prisoners' Justice Day in August of this year. Some things at Perryville can be fixed with caulk and elbow grease that the women would put into it themselves, given the right resources, but the culture of contempt for prisoners that fosters this kind of neglect is going to take a lot more to change.
 

Brenda Todd, 44. 
Victim of institutional indifference.
(January 21, 2011)

 

 Susan Lopez, 35. 

Victim of suicide and psychiatric neglect.

(March 25, 2011)

Marcia Powell, 48

Victim of a 10-minute suicide watch, bad policy, 

unconstitutional practices, and cruel and abusive guards.

(May 19, 2009)

-----------------received 9/13/2012--------------

"In the winter months, the heat is turned on by date rather than temperature. The heat runs full blast and the rooms get to be unbearably hot. The officers do not have the authority to turn the heat off, even if it is an unseasonably warm day. On a "warm" winter day, the room temperatures can reach the 90+ degree mark. The window cranks in most of the rooms are broken and do not open so there is no way to get any relief. This is absolutely cruel and unusual punishment.

In the summer months, the evaporative coolers or air conditioners are turned on by date rather than temperature. Some rooms have coolers, others have AC. In the early spring, the rooms are very cold. In the heat of the summer, when the humidity rises, the coolers do not work well. Once again the temperatures inside the rooms can reach the 90+ degree mark, with no way to get any relief. When the AC works, the rooms that have it are comfortable in the summer. The challenge is that they are often broken. As of this writing, the temperature outside is 113. The AC In my room and the 7 other attached rooms is not functioning at all. It has been out of service for the past 2 weeks. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I do not perspire very much. Extreme heat causes my muscles to cramp. I get very light headed and dizzy and ultimately vomit. I do not know if there is a medication of any kind of solution since I cannot seem to get to medical. Often we live in exceedingly hot, or exceedingly cold rooms with windows that do not open. Just another example of cruel and unusual punishment.

The Arizona sun can be punishing,. especially for those of us that have little or no tolerance for heat exposure. Lines for medical appointments, property pick up, state issue, and the store are often long. In the medical waiting area, shade and water are provided. Not much can be done to reduce the heat since the waiting area is outside. The wait can be several hours. The lines for property, state issue, and store are not in shaded areas. The wait is usually a couple of hours at best.

The mattresses in most of the cells are worn out. They are leaking black material of some kind. The coverings are cracked. The mattresses are thin and do not provide any kind of support or much protection from the metal bunks.

Many of the cells have cracks in the walls that leak rain water. In my cell, water seeps in only one corner so I am lucky that mine is not one of those that floods. However, in that corner mold is growing. In one of the rooms next to a shower, the mold is so bad that it is growing down the outside walls as well as the inside.

The showers leak gallons of water daily. Some of them have been leaking for years. The erosion of both the concrete and the metal support beams is clearly visible. I am not a building inspector, but I can clearly see that the iron railings and support beams are rusted clear through.

Hot water for showers is not always available. Sometimes we have no hot water for days at a time. When this happens, there is no hot water for washing the trays or kitchen utensils either. This has been an on-going challenge since I have been here (1997). Budgets were not restricted for the majority of those years so I find it difficult to understand the situation. The trays, sporks, and cups in the kitchen are frequently dirty. Dirt is actually embedded in the trays and sporks where the plastic coating has been worn away.

On 16 yard, dinner "sacks" are passed out at 5pm Monday-Friday. Breakfast starts being served at 8 or 8:30 on Saturday mornings. 15+ hours between meals. ON weekends, we are provided with breakfast and hot dinner, just two meals. The ladies from 14 yard walk to our kitchen and eat breakfast around 7am. The kitchen on 14 yard has been closed and the building has been condemned. At 5pm the ladies from 14 yard come to our kitchen once again for dinner. Our yard has dinner after all of them have left the yard. That is usually around 6:30 or so. For those that do not have money to purchase food from the store, it is a very long time between breakfast and dinner.

Adequate clothing is no longer provided. I waited over 6 months to have 2 pairs of panties that were lost in the laundry replaced. per policy, we are allowed to exchange clothing or linens once every 90 days. The challenge is that most of the time, state issue does not have the size or the items that are needed. On this unit we have been out of medium panties, small pants and medium t-shirts for months. When I tried to exchange clothing I was told sizes 3x were the only one available. I weigh 120 pounds! Incoming inmates are not provided with the policy-stated issue.

Each inmate is provided with 1 roll of toilet paper for the week and 12 sanitary napkins for the month. Further discussion of this is probably unnecessary."

ToersBijns to Twist: Walking Arizona's other death row

Opening night of "Political Descent"

Firehouse Gallery, Phoenix

June 9, 2012

  

 The names of Arizona's victims of prison violence, 
gross neglect and despair under the administration of Chuck Ryan.

The excellent letter below was written by Carl Toersbijns, a retired AZ Department of Corrections Deputy Warden. He worked at the state's Supermax prison in Florence, ASPC-Eyman, and knows of what he speaks. The opinion piece by Steve Twist that Carl is responding to  is here.

Find Carl's personal blog here, and his blog on AZCentral under kodiakbears, here.

-----from Carl ToersBijns---

June 17, 2012



ARIZONA REPUBLIC LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

 In reply to Mr. Steve Twist’s story on Arizona state prison systems, I am compelled to write to set the record straight from another viewpoint that differs very much with those of Mr. Twist. In order to do this, I will reveal  I have 25 years in corrections with the last 5 years with the Arizona Corrections agency as a deputy warden of operations. I left on good terms but was viewed critical by many because of my viewpoints that were not shared by peers and co-workers inside the prison system. That having been said, I am readily identified as a critic of the agency and how it spends its money and how it operates it systems statewide. Being viewed as a “progressive” in this state can cause heartburn by many and conflict as well.

 Yes, Mr. Twist, Arizona prisons do make an easy target for the media but not just the Arizona Republic. There have been numerous critical reports delivered to the community by good investigative reporters who researched their stories for accuracy for they knew they would be challenged by the DOC for accuracy.

 The characterization made for the alleged “gross mischaracterization” of the “unofficial death row” that exists within the prisons statewide is accurate. There cannot be a debate about the deaths that have occurred since Director Ryan took over in the end of January 2009. To set the record straight do your homework and visit the agency’s web page at http://www.azcorrections.gov/Minh_news_gov.asp news releases and do the math.

Reporters are reporting exactly what is being provided by the agency in a most non-transparent manner as many deaths are “pending investigation”, natural deaths, suicides and homicides, just as it was reported by all media reporters especially Mr. Bob Ortega, who requested hundreds of freedom of information documents to solidify and document his data accurately.

Truth in sentencing rules of engagement were dominated by political influences of ALEC, PRIDE and many other groups who promised financial support for those who supported their views on his to be tough on crime. This is hardly an admirable position to take for what is suppose to be a task driven for justice and equality for all under our constitutional demands.

You boldly speak of “Maximum-security inmates, those who have committed brutally violent crimes, and those who have demonstrated predatory, unruly and violent behavior by being a danger to other inmates and staff, generally make up the population housed in high-security settings” and say this without one solid contribution to personally observing these conditions or walking the tiers as many of us have for at least 16 hours a day, five days a week.

 You speak of them not being in “dark isolation, deprived of human contact or anything comparable to solitary confinement.” I challenge your knowledge and ask how you arrived at this conclusion without setting one step inside one of these facilities for no less than 8 hours.

Again, as a former deputy warden of one of the highest and most restricted security units in the state, Eyman SMU II, Florence Arizona, I never remember you walking the corridors and making this evaluation or observation first hand thus I must assume you either took a 20 minute “dog and pony” tour that was offered to all politicians and attorneys from the AG’s office or you were told this by someone who didn’t work there either.

 Regardless, you information is totally misinformed as I can validate these conditions through spending my time walking, talking and interacting with both staff and inmates inside these dark corridors where direct sunlight only hits them in the outdoor recreation box if the sun is up at high noon.

In your letter you wrote “Nevertheless, these dangerous inmates are appropriately housed for the safety of the public, themselves, and other inmates and staff” which is a statement we can agree on for sure.

Your perspective in your “discussion of the rate of inmate deaths in the Arizona prison system” is either outdated or unreal. Although you mention valid reasons for death, you purposely omit the long delays of constitutionally mandated healthcare standards that accelerate or impact the risks of recovery and while we are talking about drug overdose, suicide and homicides, these events are never clearly explained or revealed as most investigations are shoddy, incomplete and designed to close the matter as “pending further investigations” with no real follow up to reveal the actual cause of death. You cite traditional and known factors as contributors to death just so you can marginalize these deaths as human beings not provided the proper custodial care and protection under law.

Your reflection of your “housing environment” is positive but lacks the details that might reveal to you problems contributing to the overall efficiency of these housing units especially in a hot state such as Arizona.  The prisons are aging and maintenance or rather preventive maintenance has been severely impacted by budget cuts and personnel cuts that once were available to take care of these physical plants and repair as needed to keep all HVAC systems in compliance and other maintenance tasks timely.

These “variety of housing environments: dormitories, double-person cells, detention areas where inmates are temporarily segregated, and maximum-security single-person cells that are exclusively for problematic, dangerous inmates -- the worst of the worst” is an untrue statement.

They are not the “worst of the worst” as I estimate at least 26 % are mentally ill; 50 % are protective segregation or death row and the rest are gang validated and behavioral problems that need to be kept out of general population because of their supervisory needs.

 For those gang and violent offenders, the state needs to review their policies and see how they can reduce their custody levels through step down programs that will allow them to return back to general population at one time or another instead of indefinitely.

There are too many mentally ill prisoners housed there who don’t belong in max custody but rather a treatment center for stabilization, recovery programming, medication compliance and crisis intervention. Mixing them with non-mentally ill prisoners impacts and upsets these “housing environments” severely and creates more uses of force, more medical injuries, more self-inflicted wounds and more staff getting hurt because of triggers inside there that is best described as chaotic and loud once the others join the rants and anger of those kept there for reasons that warrant another review by both clinical personnel and medical personnel who are violating their ethical oaths and licenses for not treating these prisoners kept there in max custody.

You state “But in all cases, an inmate is able to interact with others. This includes the worst inmates, whose cells are in areas where they can speak with others in cells around them” thus you marginalize their housing conditions as acceptable and humane yet you have no idea what goes on inside these cell areas that turn into “bedlam” or craziness on a moments notice that impacts the sanity and insanity of everyone housed there as the need to use chemical agents is often not reserved for the one individual acting out but the entire pod will be exposed because of the ventilation systems that are joined and linked to each other through their venting systems. It is obvious you have never engaged in making housing assignments for as you had, you would know there is a systematic manner of making housing assignments inside prisons that carries with it many factors too long to mention.

The fact is that I am a critic of the agency. I am a critic in the manner they dispose of human beings in a cultural demeanor that dictates “deliberate indifference” to their civil rights and standards of care as well as custodial responsibilities.  I am a critic in hope of finding change in the manner we do business in Arizona prisons.

Many of these prisoners, both the mentally ill and the others will return back to our neighborhoods without treatment, programming and successful release planning. Their chances of staying out of prison are reduced by the lack of understanding and comprehension of how prisoners do time in Arizona as you have so superbly demonstrated by your letter indicating you are endorsing the manner it is being run and that civil rights and human rights don’t matter as long as you are incarcerated in the state of Arizona.

For the record, we have a prison system that provides “food and shelter, education, work programs, alcohol- and drug-addiction programs, and medical- and mental-health care that meet community standards” and that is most certainly truth to some extent. Your statement is misdirected to those lower custody yards not written about by Mr. Bob Ortega.

However, Bob Ortega wasn’t writing about the open yards where these amenities are so closely monitored and delivered and in compliance to a large degree. He was talking about the max custody units [and administrative segregation / detention units] where a fair proportion of Arizona prisoners are now housed under current policies to fill max custody beds so they can justify asking the legislature for more max custody beds. Beds that are the most expensive type to keep and filled but that doesn’t matter to those who pay taxes as they are willing to shell out $ 1.1 billion dollars for a system that has so many problems, they are “money pits” and wasting valuable funds that could be redirected to educational and other social needs for this state instead of prisons.

The only way you can save money on prisons is to reduce the population (what a concept) and find alternative sentencing and give the discretion back to judges to apply justified prison sentences for all persons equally under the law. 

Carl ToersBijns

Rikers, Solitary, and Schriro...

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT ON THE RISE AT RIKERS

There's been a 44 percent jump in the number of punitive segregation cells in city jails the past two years. Jail officials say it's to prevent violence, but advocates argue the punishment is counterproductive.

Jeanmarie Evelly

March 27, 2012

 

Elmhurst - Over the last two years, the Department of Correction has nearly doubled the number of "punitive segregation" cells—the Department's term for solitary confinement—at the jail facilities at Rikers Island. The 44 percent jump, DOC Commissioner Dora Schriro testified at a City Council budget hearing this month, constitutes "the most significant increase in the department's history," one that prisoners rights groups say gives New York City one of the highest solitary confinement rates in the nation.

 

At press time, 914 inmates were being held in segregation at Rikers, meaning they are typically confined to their cells for 23 hours a day. Jail officials say this is a necessary tool to curtail an uptick in violence, maintain safety and order and deal with inmates who commit serious rule violations.

But prisoner advocacy groups say the increase is alarming at a time when the inmate population in the city's jails is at a low, and in light of a growing body of research that says solitary confinement does little to curb bad behavior, and could actually make some inmates act more violently.

Correctional systems across the country have been reducing their use of segregated units, and this fall, a United Nations expert called an all countries to ban the practice except under the most extreme circumstances, likening the mental health effects of prolonged solitary confinement to torture.

"We're at a terrible point where management is really overly punitive, and not able to grasp that it's wrong, that it's not working," says Sarah Kerr, of the Legal Aid Society's Prisoners Rights Project. "The idea that other places are realizing the error and trying to reform, and New York is doing the opposite, is really a problem."

"It's interesting that DOC is doing this when the jail population is falling," says Jennifer Parish, director of criminal justice advocacy at the Urban Justice Center. Indeed, from 2001 to 2010, admissions to city jails fell by 20 percent and their average daily population dropped by 10 percent. "I find it incredible that there's actually a need for this, and that there aren't management strategies they could use to address the problem."

Split lips, broken bones

Violence has long been the most-cited rationale for solitary confinement, and the DOC is under considerable pressure to make sure its facilities are safe.

"Our core objective is to protect both the inmate population and the workforce from harm," Commissioner Schriro says.

For the last several years, union officials who represent jail workers have complained of an uptick in violence against their members. In 2010, there were 84 incidents of inmate assaults on staff resulting in serious injury, according to DOC statistics, up from 63 in 2009 and 53 in 2008.

"Correction officers bear the brunt of it by being assaulted on a daily basis," says Norman Seabrook, president of the Correctional Officers Benevolent Association (COBA). "Every day, every other day, three or four times a day, I'm getting a text message or an e-mail from the Department of Correction notifying me of how many of my correction officers have been assaulted—split lips, sutures, broken bones. This goes on and on and on and this has to stop."

Seabrook blames the increase, in part, on insufficient staff numbers, saying the DOC is not hiring enough correction officers to replace those who retire, get promoted or leave for other reasons.

At the budget hearing last month, Commissioner Schriro said that while the department is hiring several hundred new posts, there is still a shortfall in the department's budget for authorized uniformed staff.

But union officials have also pointed to a shortage of punitive segregation units—known as "Bing" beds—for putting officers at risk. Last fall, the DOC was blasted after media outlets reported on a backlog of inmates who had been sentenced to solitary confinement but who were being held with the rest of the general population because there weren't enough segregated beds. In one incident in November, the Daily News reported that two men involved in a violent slashing in a recreation room were supposed to have been in solitary for previous infractions.

This backlog is the main reason prison officials give for the recent expansion of segregated housing units. In 2009, DOC spokeswoman Sharman Stein said, there were over 1,200 inmates waiting to be placed in solitary. Since then, the department has added 325 units, bringing the total capacity to 1,035 solitary beds, or seven percent of the average daily jail population (a number the DOC says is comparable to other correctional systems, but which advocacy groups argue is much higher than the average—the Legal Aid Society says that the nationwide solitary rate is between two and four percent.)

Today, Stein says, only a "handful" of inmates owe Bing time.

"Resolving this backlog was important to address – all too often, inmates who had remained in general population pending imposition of the punishment for assaulting another inmate or staff, harmed another person," Stein wrote in an e-mail.

Running the New York City jail system, the second largest in the country, is not a simple task. The population at Rikers is an ever-changing one. There are over 87,000 admissions and more than 88,000 releases a year, according to the DOC. Unlike the state prisons, a majority of the population at Rikers is made up of detainees awaiting trial. Some are felons awaiting transfer to a prison facility upstate. Others are those serving short-term misdemeanor sentences, generally less than a year.

Schriro says that while the number of inmates being held in the city's jails is at a low, Rikers has seen an increase in the types of inmates who are prone to bad behavior and who are responsible for the majority of jail incidents: "high-custody" inmates, deemed by jail officials as more inclined to institutional violence, including inmates with gang affiliations, adolescents and the mentally ill.

"The inmate census is lower now than before, but the inmates who are in jail are far more difficult to manage and far more damaged than the inmate population previously," Schriro says.

"The very good news is the vast majority of inmates in our custody are violation-free. They're here to work through their case and then be gone," the Commissioner says. "But there are several populations in particular that have the greatest likelihood of breaking the rules, breaking the law, assaulting a member of the workforce or causing serious injury. There's this group that's pretty dedicated to those endeavors."

Overused and overly punitive?

Prison advocacy groups, however, dispute the DOC's assertions that they need more punitive segregation units. The backlog in inmates waiting for solitary beds, they say, is not due to lack of space but on the DOC's reliance on segregation as a punishment and as a management tool.

"My feeling is, it's being overused," says Barbara Hamilton, a former law librarian at the DOC who now works as a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, handling appeals for Rikers detainees challenging their punitive segregation time. "Sometimes it's used as retaliation, sometimes it's used to control mental health inmates."

Mentally ill inmates, experts say, are more prone to violent outbursts and other disruptive behavior in jails and prisons. At Rikers, just over a third of the population has a mental health diagnosis. Mentally ill inmates who violate rules and get sentenced to segregation time are placed in what's called a Mental Health Assessment Unit for Infracted Inmates, or MHAUII—200 solitary confinement beds where, according to Stein, there is increased access to clinicians staffed by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Research has shown that psychiatric symptoms are aggravated by the type of isolation used in punitive segregation, and advocates say even the MHAUII units are not sufficient and lack the resources for dealing with inmates with serious mental health problems.

"It's nothing like what would qualify as a mental health treatment unit," says Parish. "They have some mental health staff who checks on people every so often."

(At the same time, the DOC has been criticized in the past for not segregating mentally ill inmates. In 2001, for example, a detainee was beaten to death by his cellmate, a 19-year-old inmate whose own lawyers said should have been placed in solitary for his psychotic tendencies).

Schriro says Rikers staff carefully evaluates the needs of every inmate to determine where they should be housed. The department has spent the last two years fine-tuning their inmate classification system, "scoring" inmates based on factors like mental and medical health needs, as well as their propensity towards violent behavior. Someone deemed high-security, for example—like a known gang member—might be put in a housing unit where food is brought to their cell, instead of one where they need to be escorted to the chow hall, reducing the chance of a fight that might happen en route.

Inmates are re-assessed every 60 days, Schriro said, and good behavior can lower an inmate's score, which can get them moved into a less restrictive housing unit that offers some kind of reward incentive, like a common room that has two television sets instead of one.

Schriro adds that the DOC's hands are tied in many ways by city rules, set by the Board of Corrections' minimum standards, that allow all inmates in the general population—essentially, anyone other than those sentenced to punitive segregation—the option of leaving their cells or "locking out" for up to 14 hours a day. If the DOC were given more discretion in determining lock out periods for individual inmates, she says, they wouldn't depend as much on punitive segregation.

Further still, she insists, the city's solitary units are less restrictive than those in the state prisons or in so-called "super max" facilities, where inmates are often placed indefinitely and for years on end. At Rikers, where the average length of stay is 50 days, punitive segregation is more a "temporary assignment," she says, one that's largely reserved for inmates who've committed a grade 1 offense, typically a violent infraction.

Inmates who commit lesser violations, grade 2 or 3—say, drug possession or disobeying orders—will often receive less harsh reprimands, Schriro says. "But for that group where incentives do not entice, where lesser sanctions are not sufficient to otherwise modify their conduct, punitive beds become an important strategy," she adds. "Not by any means the only strategy, but it's something that's necessary, just as jail itself is."

Inmates rights groups, however, assert that it's common for individuals to get Bing time for minor offenses, like disobeying orders, and that much of the discretion is left in the hands of correction officers. The Legal Aid Society, which represents many Rikers inmates and detainees, says clients report a "culture of brutality."
Many accused of committing violence are often reacting to assaults committed first by officers, advocates say, pointing to DOC statistics indicating an increase in uses of force by jail staff as proof.

"I don't think it's running as smoothly as the Commissioner thinks," Hamilton says.

Victor Herrera, 45, was locked up in Rikers in 2010 for a drugs possession charge. He describes himself as a "boisterous" inmate and says he was disliked by the staff for complaining about his meals—he's a vegetarian—and for disobeying orders. He estimates he spent four or five months in the Bing, a period during which, he says, he was at the mercy of correction officers.

"Every need has to be met by the COs," he says. "They don't care about the inmates, they have this view that inmates are the lowest on the totem pole, that they're trash."

He says some officers would intentionally not deliver his meals as retaliation for bad behavior, and that he was routinely ignored if he tried to request something. He would take to covering up the small window looking into his cell—a security violation, because officers then couldn't check in on him—just to get someone's attention.
"They'd walk right by my cell and I could bang and yell and scream and nobody does anything," he says.

"You can talk until your mouth is dry and they will ignore you."

‘No better way to create a violent individual'

Inmates held at the Bing are typically on lockdown for 23 hours a day, experts say. They are allowed out for an hour of recreation, required by the Board of Corrections' standards, and for occasional meetings with lawyers or to meet with religious advisers, but their access to showers can be reduced at the discretion of staff. Reading materials and meals are brought to inmates in their cells by guards.

The isolation imposed by segregated confinement, many experts say, can cause severe psychological distress, even in otherwise healthy people. According to Dr. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist who studies the effects of solitary confinement, isolating inmates can result in agitation, paranoia, panic attacks, hallucinations and problems with impulse control—symptoms that can make someone already prone to violence even more so.

"There's no better way to create a violent individual than to put them in solitary," Grassian says. "Are there moments when a person should be housed by themselves until they calm down? Sure. We do it in psychiatric hospitals. But we do it in situations where there's an effort in re-engaging the patient. That's usually in a matter of minutes, hours, but not weeks, months or many years."

That's the argument that critics of solitary confinement make—that as a tactic to control violence, it just doesn't work. Jails should attempt to focus on fixing their management techniques, advocates say, and focus on rehabilitative efforts over lockdown.

"It may sound good politically to say you're tough on crime, but what you're really doing is being tough on the community, because we're going to see those people on the outside," Grassian says.

UNSHACKLING Arizona: SB1184 makes it through committee.

Hooray!!!

---------from the AP via the Capitol Times---------

Committee approves pregnant inmates bill

By The Associated Press

Published: February 1, 2012 at 1:40 pm

A Senate committee unanimously approved a bill Wednesday morning that would ban state or county jails and prisons from shackling inmates or detainees while they’re being transported for delivery or during labor, delivery or postpartum recovery. The bill makes exceptions if medical staffers ask that the prisoner be restrained or a jail or prison official decides the prisoner or detainee might take off.

The bill follows a lawsuit that was filed last year against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office by an inmate who says her rights were violated when she was shackled before and after her Caesarean section in 2009.

The Arizona Republic reported last December that the lawsuit claims Miriam Mendiola-Martinez was forced to leave the hospital with her hands and feet handcuffed. The lawsuit also claims Mendiola-Martinez was taken away without receiving pain medication. That was one impetus for the Senate bill, said Sen. Linda Gray, R-Phoenix, who sponsored the measure.

“To me, that was humiliating. She’s probably still in pain and that was unnecessary,” she said after the committee hearing on Wednesday.

Gray said the American Civil Liberties Union brought it to her attention.

The issue is something the organization has been tracking for a number of years, said Anjali Abraham, an ACLU lobbyist.

“We just want to ensure the safest delivery conditions for baby and mom. This is a population that often gets overlooked,” she said.

So far, 14 states have adopted similar restrictions, according to the ACLU. Bills to restrict shackling are being considered in Massachusetts and Florida this year.

The Arizona Department of Corrections, U.S. Marshals Service and Federal Bureau of Prisons have all adopted policies in the past decade that prohibit the shackling of women in labor.

The practice is “inhumane” and “Draconian,” said Imani Walker, the executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, a Washington D.C.-based group that lobbied the federal prison system to adopt restrictions on shackling pregnant prisoners.

Lawmakers in Arizona tried to pass a law restricting the practice last year, but the bill failed to make it out of a committee. This year, lawmakers from both parties have signed onto the Senate bill and a similar proposal that’s been introduced in the House.

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jeff Sprong said the agency is neutral on the bill after working on a compromise with lawmakers that allowed the use of a leg tether to be attached to an inmate’s ankle and the bed frame during postpartum recovery.

The bill stipulates that if restraints are used during the delivery process, they should be “done in the least restrictive manner necessary.”

Dr. Lisa Cookingham, who practices obstetrics and gynecology in the Phoenix area, testified at the hearing in support of the bill and said she cares for incarcerated patients on a regular basis.

In a recent case, she said one of her patients went into labor at six and a half months and needed an emergency delivery of the baby. Cookingham said officers initially refused her requests to remove shackles on the patient’s legs, which jeopardized the care of the mother and child.

“This unfortunately is not unique situation,” she said.

Cookingham said she appreciates the security measures, but feels they are often excessive and ignore health and safety concerns.

The bill advances to the Senate rules committee. From there, if it passes, the measure would move to the full Senate.

UNSHACKLE US! SB 1184: Rights for pregnant prisoners.

----------Legislative ALERT From the ACLU of Arizona------------

Every woman deserves safe and humane conditions in which to deliver her child.
And every child deserves safe delivery conditions that don’t risk his or her entry into this world.

But pregnant inmates—and their children—don’t always get those conditions. Pregnant inmates are sometimes shackled at the wrists and/or ankles while they give birth.  This practice is extremely dangerous to both mother and baby and can cause major problems during delivery. This practice is almost always unnecessary. This practice has been opposed by the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Correctional Association, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the U.S. Marshals Service. This practice has already been banned by a handful of other states.

Tomorrow morning at 9 AM, an Arizona Senate health committee will try to do something about the practice of shackling pregnant inmates. SB 1184 (prohibited restraints; pregnant prisoners) prohibits the use of restraints on pregnant inmates while they are being transported to a medical facility to deliver their baby, during labor and delivery, and during postpartum recovery. The bill is sensible and reasonable, and even includes a safety exception to allow for the limited use of restraints if it is absolutely necessary for the safety of medical and corrections personnel. The bill also has significant bipartisan support. Most importantly, SB 1184 goes a long way to ensuring safe conditions for mother and baby in a population that is all too often overlooked.

Tell Arizona’s legislators that you support the safety and well-being of all children and their mothers. Tell Arizona’s legislators that they can do the same by voting “YES” on SB 1184. There are two ways to do so.

If you have an account with the Legislature's request-to-speak system, log in and register your support. You can reach the log-in page by following this link: http://alistrack.azleg.gov/rts/login.asp

Contact the members of the Senate Public Safety and Human Services Committee and ask them to vote “YES” on SB 1184. Here is the contact information for members of the committee:

Linda Gray (**committee chair and sponsor of the bill**)—email: lgray@azleg.gov; phone: 602-926-3376
Adam Driggs (vice-chair)—email: adriggs@azleg.gov; phone: 602-926-3016
Nancy Barto—email: nbarto@azleg.gov; phone: 602-926-5766
Rich Crandall—email: rcrandall@azleg.gov; phone: 602-926-3020
Leah Landrum Taylor—email: llandrum@azleg.gov; phone: 602-926-3830
Linda Lopez—email: llopez@azleg.gov; phone: 602-926-4089

In liberty,

Anjali Abraham
Public Policy Director

MCSO Jails: Graves v. Arpaio winding down.

Disregard the old post below - Here's the October 1, 2014 UPDATE on Graves v Arpaio: 
 

Judge Wake re: Graves v Arpaio: jail medical care still sucks.

"Time to Indict"
National Chalk the Police Day,
4th Avenue Jail, Phoenix
October 1, 2011

Unfortunately, there are more than a few minor issues with the county jails that remain unresolved. There continues to be a culture of abuse among MCSO officers and a larger CJ system which minimizes such behavior, a poison which seeps from the top on down. The conditions in the jails today - particularly the medical neglect and the abuse that the mentally ill have been subjected to - are still unacceptable. Even I didn't get my medications in jail.

Sadly, that won't be likely to change much until Arpaio is out of there and someone who respects human and civil rights is in. We'll see if this electorate has it in them to do better than him next time around.

------------from the AZ Republic------------

34-year Maricopa County jails suit nears end

Last issues don't need hearing, attorneys say

by JJ Hensley

Oct. 23, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
 

The inmates, jails and sheriff have all changed since a class-action lawsuit was filed over county jail conditions 34 years ago, but ongoing concerns kept the lawsuit alive.

That legal action, which over time changed the way Maricopa County holds and treats inmates, appears finally to be coming to an end - if the Sheriff's Office can attend to a few minor issues in the next few months.
Attorneys for inmates and the Sheriff's Office scheduled to present their cases to a federal judge last week in the decades-old fight canceled the hearings after lawyers on both sides agreed they were close enough to resolving a final few issues that they did not need to go before a judge.

"If, in fact, we do what we intend to do, it should be done - no hearing, nothing," said Jack MacIntyre, a sheriff's chief deputy.

It would be a milestone. For years, county jails have been subject to court-ordered oversight to ensure that inmate conditions improved. While a separate piece of the lawsuit targeting Correctional Health Services - a taxpayer-funded agency that provides constitutionally mandated health care to inmates - will continue under court oversight, the fact that the rest of the Sheriff's Office's jail operations could emerge from oversight is significant.

If the Sheriff's Office can, by early March 2012, increase the caloric intake of inmates, address overcrowding in a holding facility and prove there is proper sanitation, the agency will emerge from court oversight. Those requirements were part of an amended judgment issued by a federal judge.

"We're pleased to see that the sheriff is agreeing to cooperate and resolve and come into compliance with the second amended judgment," said Sharad Desai, an attorney representing the inmates.

Advocates say it has been a long time coming.

Three inmates held in the First Avenue Jail brought the original lawsuit against then-Sheriff Jerry Hill in 1977, asking a federal court to intervene over conditions they claimed were "degrading, inhuman, punitive, unhealthy and dangerous."

Court documents and news reports from the time depict jails that appear brutal compared with the spartan facilities Sheriff Joe Arpaio now proudly operates.

The unsentenced inmates complained in court filings of cold food that could contain glass or spit and meat that was sometimes uncooked or dropped on the floor and served for dinner; of rodents and insects living in 136-square-foot cells with up to eight inmates who weren't allowed to shower for days; and of going days, weeks, even months without seeing the sun or getting the chance for recreation.

Patrick Schiffer was a young attorney at the time working in a Community Legal Services office when he took the case in 1979, and while he calls the case the most fun he has had as a lawyer, he also recalls the horrid conditions.

"They had 8-by-21-foot cells with eight people and a toilet at the end, so only about three guys could stand up at a time and they spent 24 hours a day in there because the day rooms between the cells were stacked with mattresses," he said.

Schiffer's work on the case also made him skeptical about the county's commitment to change the jail system. Correctional Health Services' ongoing court oversight and Arpaio's inclination to make life hard on inmates leave Schiffer wondering about the effect of the court orders to improve conditions over the years.
"That's been the problem from Day One of the judgment," Schiffer said. "They don't follow what they promise to do. They do some of it."

The condition of jails in Maricopa County was not unique at the time.

In the early 1970s, federal judges began getting involved in cases about prison conditions at the state and county levels, and what they found was shocking, said Michele Deitch, an attorney and University of Texas professor who served as a court-appointed monitor in Texas prisons.

By the mid-1980s, nearly 40 states were operating all or parts of their prison and jail systems under some sort of court order, she said.

"A lot of these problems were invisible for a long time. I think there were abuses in these facilities for many, many years. A lot of it was sort of swept under the rug," Deitch said. "When all the testimony about these conditions started coming out, they couldn't be ignored. So judges started imposing remedies to fix these conditions."

Many of the cases, including Maricopa County's, took decades to resolve because it took years to get funding, build new facilities and change the culture of jail systems to meet the court-ordered remedies, she said.

A federal judge first issued guidelines on legal compliance for Maricopa County jails in 1981. That judgment was amended in 1995. Then in 2001, the Sheriff's Office tried to terminate the judgment under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which states that decrees on jail conditions are up for dismissal after two years unless inmates can show their constitutional rights are being denied.

That led to U.S. District Judge Neil Wake's 2008 ruling that unconstitutional conditions persisted in the county's jails. Wake issued a second amended judgment, which the Sheriff's Office is now trying to prove it has complied with.

Despite the long-running legal battle and the millions spent to litigate the case, MacIntyre said the lawsuit has had a lasting impact on jail operations.

It played a role in the county's decision to seek funding for new jail facilities, including the Lower Buckeye and Fourth Avenue jails, and caused detention officials to closely examine the way they treat and house inmates, he said.

"There's certainly been some benefit from that. But it's time," MacIntyre said. "The system has benefited from it, but it's time to return all the management back to the Sheriff's Office."