A community resource for monitoring, navigating, surviving, and dismantling the prison industrial complex in Arizona.
Retiring Arizona Prison Watch...
This site was originally started in July 2009 as an independent endeavor to monitor conditions in Arizona's criminal justice system, as well as offer some critical analysis of the prison industrial complex from a prison abolitionist/anarchist's perspective. It was begun in the aftermath of the death of Marcia Powell, a 48 year old AZ state prisoner who was left in an outdoor cage in the desert sun for over four hours while on a 10-minute suicide watch. That was at ASPC-Perryville, in Goodyear, AZ, in May 2009.
Marcia, a seriously mentally ill woman with a meth habit sentenced to the minimum mandatory 27 months in prison for prostitution was already deemed by society as disposable. She was therefore easily ignored by numerous prison officers as she pleaded for water and relief from the sun for four hours. She was ultimately found collapsed in her own feces, with second degree burns on her body, her organs failing, and her body exceeding the 108 degrees the thermometer would record. 16 officers and staff were disciplined for her death, but no one was ever prosecuted for her homicide. Her story is here.
Marcia's death and this blog compelled me to work for the next 5 1/2 years to document and challenge the prison industrial complex in AZ, most specifically as manifested in the Arizona Department of Corrections. I corresponded with over 1,000 prisoners in that time, as well as many of their loved ones, offering all what resources I could find for fighting the AZ DOC themselves - most regarding their health or matters of personal safety.
I also began to work with the survivors of prison violence, as I often heard from the loved ones of the dead, and learned their stories. During that time I memorialized the Ghosts of Jan Brewer - state prisoners under her regime who were lost to neglect, suicide or violence - across the city's sidewalks in large chalk murals. Some of that art is here.
In November 2014 I left Phoenix abruptly to care for my family. By early 2015 I was no longer keeping up this blog site, save occasional posts about a young prisoner in solitary confinement in Arpaio's jail. I'm deeply grateful to the prisoners who educated, confided in, and encouraged me throughout the years I did this work. My life has been made all the more rich and meaningful by their engagement.
I've linked to some posts about advocating for state prisoner health and safety to the right, as well as other resources for families and friends.
The first month of the new year was not kind to Arizona's prisoners, at least three of whom died in the first week by their own hand, and one of whom was brutally murdered. What follows are death notices for January 2015. The AZ DOC seldom updates the public with information about a cause of
death unless there's a compelling demand from media for it - and all they are inclined to tell us about at times like these are their dead prisoners crimes and punishments. If you have any information on any of these individuals' lives or their deaths, or are a loved one who needs assistance, please feel free to contact me. Peggy Plews arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com
JANUARY 2015 AZ DOC DEATHS
January 1 ASPC-Lewis SUICIDE Donald Condra, 51, ADC #233190
January 5 ASPC-EYMAN SUICIDE Bernard Stewart, 47, ADC #277366
January 5 ASPC-EYMAN SUICIDE Justin Reif, 24 ADC#244623
January 6 ASPC-Florence UNK James Haley, 50 ADC#075188
January 7 ASPC-Perryville UNK Carolyn Thompson, 67 ADC#038274
January 14 CACF (GEO) UNK Craig Aubert, 46 ADC#278241
January 19 ASP-Kingman Homicide Neil Early, 23, ADC #250396
January 31 ASPC-Perryville UNK Cheryl Smith, 54 ADC#288162
23 year old Neil Early
Murdered at ASP-Kingman,
on a minimum security yard.
This was the AZ DOC's Director's statement about suicides on his watch after two guys killed themselves the same day, in the same prison. What I've seen is that Ryan's AZ DOC's methods of "suicide prevention" and "suicide watch" are so brutal and humiliating, with mentally ill prisoners in particular sustaining such emotional and physical abuse, that its no wonder more aren't sent home dead. This really sounds like Ryan is trying hard to look on the bright side of being mediocre ("average") about suicide prevention and response. I wouldnt find it acceptable, myself, if my own kid was inside - by not offering drug abuse treatment and mental health care where needed, Corizon is cutting corners where Ryan lets them, making a profit at the most severely impaired prisoners' expense...
“The
Department of Corrections is dedicated to the safety and security of
the general public, ADC personnel and the inmates in our custody. Any
inmate self-harm attempt is taken seriously and is thoroughly
investigated.
This
department has a goal of zero inmate suicides, and while one suicide is
one too many, data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics
indicate that ADC’s rate of inmate suicides was approximately 17 per
100,000 from 2001-2012 (the most recent annual data available). This is
nearly identical to the overall rate for the entire state population.
This
data also shows that in terms of prison systems, 21 states had a higher
rate than Arizona, 27 had a rate below, and one has the same rate as
ADC. This places Arizona’s rate in alignment with national average.
In
2009, ADC instituted enhanced measures to address this issue. Those
strategies include an integrated approach to mental health and suicide
prevention that combines environmental, programmatic, operational,
training and staff considerations. This begins for every inmate upon
arrival at ADC where they are assessed for any mental health, medical
and dental issues.
Specifically,
ADC has instituted additional inmate programming to address mental
health and self-esteem concerns, enhanced officer patrol procedures to
ensure ongoing observation of inmates in max custody units, made
facility modifications such as enlarging cell windows to increase
visibility and communication between inmates and staff, modified
recreational enclosures to increase group contact and promote
socialization, replaced individual classroom enclosures with secure desk
chairs for programming classes, and installed televisions for
self-paced inmate programming.”
# # # #
INMATE DEATHS BY YEAR AND CAUSE
*FY 2015 as of 01/05/2015 **Actual inmate population as of 01/05/2015 Includes ADC and Contract Beds ADP – Average Daily Population (for Fiscal Year) Cause
of death figures are subject to change based on official medical
examiner reports, which may be issued in a subsequent month.
Johann Hari Author of 'Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs'
Posted:
Updated:
For the past few months, I
have been watching the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter as it exposes the
unpunished killings of African-Americans -- Trayvon and Michael and
Eric, and all the other names that never make the news, because there
are so many, and it never seems to stop. I had a very personal reason
for watching it so closely. For most of my adult life, and for the past
three years especially, I have been spending a lot of time with another
minority group. All over the world, they are being killed or left to
die, with nobody being punished, and nobody being called to account.
There have even been government officials who suggest their deaths are a
good thing
.
There will be some people reading this who shrug
when members of this minority die, and say they brought it on
themselves. I am talking about addicts, who I spent a lot of time with
for my new book, Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. I would like to propose today the hashtag #AddictsLivesMatter, because we need to change how we think about them.
Here's
a story I stumbled across that, to me, distills the darkest attitude we
have fostered towards addicts in our culture -- the one that has been
created by the drug war, and has been in place for a century this year.
In
Phoenix, Arizona, I went to a prison called Tent City. It is a slew of
tents in the desert behind barbed wire, and I went out in the sweaty
Arizona sun with the prison's female chain gang, who are forced to wear
t-shirts saying "I Was A Drug Addict" and dig graves. The guards force
these women to chant rhymes that state they will be electrocuted if they
show any "lip." It's not an idle threat: I met the father of a man who
was killed with a taser in this prison, on camera, when he was offering no resistance.
I
talked with the women about their lives as they wiped the sweat from
their brows. One of them, Karen, was in her early forties and had a
quiet, girlish voice as she stuttered her story about being violently
abused by men all her life, and how the only thing that had ever made
her feel any relief was drugs.
I also spoke with the women who
work on prisoners' rights in Arizona, and I asked them one of my stock
journalistic questions: What have you seen over the years that shocked
you? One of them, Donna Leone Hamm of the excellent organization Middle Ground Prison Reform,
started to reel off a long list, and a while into her list she
mentioned the time they put a woman in a cage and cooked her, and then
carried on. I asked her to stop, and go back a second. What did they do?
When
Prisoner Number 109416 woke up in her cell in Perryville State Prison
on May 19th 2009 she was suicidal. The prison doctor said she was just
trying to get out of her cell. They took 109416 and put her in an
uncovered outdoor cage. And they left her there. According to witnesses,
she begged for water. She shat herself. She started to scream
deliriously. And then she collapsed. By the time the ambulance arrived,
her internal organs had been cooked, as if in an oven.
And here's the thing. Nobody was ever criminally punished.
Because she was an addict. Because she didn't matter.
Almost
nothing was known about Prisoner Number 109416 except that she was in
and out of prison either for having meth, or for prostituting herself to
get it, so I set off on a journey across the US to find out who she
really was. The story -- which you can find in the book -- tells us a
lot about the drug war. Her real name was Marcia Powell and, as I
learned from the father of her son, there were moments in her life when
she got clean and recovered, only to be busted for old drug charges and
to spiral back onto the road that ended in a desert cage.
This
story is extreme, but as I learned on my long journey from Mexico to
Vietnam, it is only the sharpest tip of the spear that is jabbed at
addicts every day, across most of the world. It has been there since the
start of the drug war. This war was launched in the 1930s by a man
called Harry Anslinger, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who
was driven by an obsessive hatred of addicts. He treasured a poem that
said he could only retire when "the last addicts died."
One of the
people he took his rage out on was Billie Holiday. He had her stalked
by his agents and sent to prison. He had her stripped of her ability to
perform anywhere that alcohol was served. When she collapsed with liver
cancer, his agents arrested her on her hospital bed. They handcuffed her
to the bed. They confiscated her record player. They banned her friends
from seeing her. People protested outside with signs saying "Let Lady
Live." When her methadone was cut off, she went into withdrawal and
died.
And here's where #BlackLivesMatter and #AddictsLivesMatter
meet. When Anslinger found out Judy Garland was a heroin addict, he
didn't have her stalked and killed. He told her to take longer
vacations, and reassured her studio she'd be fine. Can you spot the
difference between Billie and Judy? Can you spot the difference today
between the addicts in Beverley Hills who get compassionate rehab, and
the addicts in South Central who get cold jail cells?
Nobody
wishes the drug war on people they love -- white people, in Harry
Anslinger's case. Yet when it comes to the addicts we don't know, we
have chosen -- as a society -- a policy of mass caging instead of a
policy of compassion. Why? I interviewed Eric Sterling, the lawyer who
wrote the drug laws from the United States throughout the 1980s, and who
now bitterly regrets it and campaigns for sensible policies. He told me
about one meeting, at the height of the AIDS crisis, where he and a
group of senators were being briefed on how it was essential to
distribute clean needles, or all the addicts would die. Eric didn't
write down the words at the time, but he recalled that one of the
senator suggested a mass die-off of addicts would be a good thing. After
all, who wants addicts to survive?
It's important to stress that
most people who support the drug war don't think this way. They don't
want to kill addicts. They tell themselves that they are being harsh in
order to be kind -- that you have to threaten punishment in order to
encourage current addicts to stop, and to prevent other people from
falling down that dark well. I don't judge anyone for believing this --
it is based on compassion, and it has been backed with an enormous
amount of government propaganda for a hundred years.
But I would
urge anyone who sincerely believes this to look at the evidence. There
are places that have tried the punishment approach and addicts keep
dying in huge numbers. And there are places that have tried the
compassionate approach and addicts start to survive and recover in much
greater numbers. I have seen this all over the world, from Switzerland
to the North of England. To give just one example, in Portugal, after
they decriminalized all drugs and chose to spend the money on caring for
addicts instead, the rate of injecting drug use has fallen by 50
percent, and overdose and HIV transmission among addicts have come
crashing down.
To choose this better path, we have to undo a lot
of the assumptions that have been drilled into our heads. As Harry
Anslinger was stalking Billie Holiday, he was helping to invent a whole
new way of thinking about addicts -- as vampires, or zombies, or
predators. We have dehumanized people who get addicted to banned drugs
in a way we (thankfully) don't dehumanize people who get addicted to
legal drugs, like alcohol. We have to recover the ability to see the
humanity of addicts -- that they are people like us, with feelings and
dreams and the capacity to be heroic.
I learned about this from many people -- but nobody taught it to me more than a man called Bud Osborn.
In
the year 2000 Bud was a homeless street addict on the streets of the
Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. His neighborhood had the highest
concentration of addicts anywhere in North America. It was the place at
the end of the line in the city at the end of the line of the American
continent, and all around him, Bud's friends were dying. They would
shoot up behind dumpsters so the police wouldn't see them -- but if the
police can't see you, nor can anyone else, so if you start to OD, you
will be found days later, dead.
Bud decided he had to do something. But he also thought, What can I do? I am just a homeless junkie.
Then he had an idea. He gathered some addicts and proposed something simple. He asked them, Why don't we arrange a schedule, and patrol the alleyways ourselves? If we see one of us ODing, we can call an ambulance.
The
addicts started to do it and their death rates began to tumble. That
was great in itself, but it also meant they began to think about
themselves differently -- maybe we're not pieces of shit. Maybe we are people who can achieve things.
They started to turn up at public meetings to discuss The Menace Of The
Addicts, and they would sit at the back, and after a while, they would
put up their hands and explain they were The Addicts, and ask what they
could do differently. People complained they left needles lying around,
so the patrols were extended to collect discarded needles.
Bud
learned that in Frankfurt, Germany, they had opened safe injecting rooms
where people could use their drugs monitored by doctors, and that it
had massively reduced the death toll. So Bud and hundreds of other
addicts began to stalk Philip Owen, the right-wing mayor of Vancouver,
everywhere he went, carrying a coffin, asking how long it would be
before he ended the deaths.
Nobody had much optimism. Philip Owen
was a right-wing businessman from a rich family who had said that
addicts should be carted off to the local military base.
But then,
after protesting for years, something nobody expected happened. Philip
Owen wondered who the hell these people were, and he went to the
Downtown Eastside incognito, and he spent night after night talking with
addicts. And he was blown away. He had had no idea what their lives
were like.
So Philip Owen made an announcement. He held a press
conference with the police chief, the coroner, and the addicts, and he
announced they were opening the first injecting room in North America.
It opened, and Philip Owen's right-wing party was so appalled they
eventually deselected him, and his political career ended. He was
replaced by a left-wing candidate who kept the injecting room open.
But
the taboo was broken. And now the results are in. Ten years on, the
average life expectancy on the Downtown Eastside has improved by ten
years, and overdose is down by 80 percent. Philip Owen told me he would
do it all again in a heart beat.
Bud died last year. He was only
in his early sixties, but life as a homeless addict during a drug war,
before there was any help, had wrecked his body. For his memorial
service they sealed off the streets of the Downtown Eastside, where he
had once lived on the pavements, and enormous crowds gathered. There
were a lot of people in that crowd who knew they were alive because of
the uprising Bud began all those years before.
I learned so much
from my friendship with Bud, but here's what I learned more than
anything else: You never write anyone off. You never dismiss a human
being. You never can assume anyone is worthless. It's hard to think of
somebody with less power or respect than a homeless street addict -- but
Bud saved thousands of lives, and he changed his city forever.
If you are reading this and thinking, Yes,
the abuse of addicts is wrong, but what can we do? We all feel
powerless. We all feel sometimes like we can't make a difference. Then think of Bud. If we band together, we have so much more power than we realize.
Every
human has the capacity to be a hero -- including addicts. Every life
matters. Every addict's life matters. Marcia Powell deserved better than
being cooked in a cage. Billie Holiday deserved better than being
handcuffed on her deathbed. Bud deserved better than years on the
streets. In the twentieth century, we chose policies that kill addicts
over policies that save addicts. As year 101 of the drug war begins, we
have a chance to save the next Marcia, and Billie, and Bud. There is a
better way waiting for us -- if only we are ready to seize it.
Please
share your stories of addicts you have known, or addicts who have been
killed by our wrong approach, with the hashtag #AddictsLivesMatter.
Johann
Hari's book 'Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on
Drugs' is published by Bloomsbury as a hardback, ebook and audiobook. To
find out where to buy it, or for more information, click here.
Johann
will be speaking and signing books at Politics and Prose in Washington
DC on the evening of the 29th Jan, the 92nd Street Y in NYC on the
lunchtime of the 30th Jan, Red Emma's in Baltimore on the 4th Feb, and
at Ben McNally bookstore in Toronto (with Naomi Klein) on the 11th Feb.
UPDATE 05/19/19 current campaign (over the SOS happening still)
#DARTHryan #DarkSideRyan
#CHUCKCHUCK#DELIBERATEindifferenceKILLS
(I actually doubt @dougducey has the balls to #FIREChuckRyan but we should tell him to anyway)
UPDATE (1/25/15 3:20pm)
I've heard from Neil's family since the post below, and they confirm he was murdered at ASP-Kingman/Cerbat. The AZ DOC should have cracked down on ASP-Kingman over the proliferation of drugs and violence there after the escape of John McClusky and friends, but by the sound sof things, it all only got worse once the spotlight was off this private prison.
Neil's mom has posted this message on her facebook, and has asked folks to share it far and wide.
(Neil Early 7/11/1991-1/19/2015) We are the parents of Neil Early who was murdered in the Kingman Prison
on Monday 1/19/15. Neil was only 23 years old. There are many untruths
going on and we want to clarify a few details.
Neil wasn’t a bad man, misguided, but he wanted to do the right thing.
He was in prison, doing 5 years and had 15 months left on his term. He
was convicted of Drug Paraphernalia and Conspiracy to Commit Retail
Theft. This meant that he stole some video games from two different
stores and resold them for money. Stupid yes, but he shouldn’t have to
die for a mistake he was already paying for. He now will never be a son
again, a big brother, a cousin, or a father to his child. The family
needs to know what happened to him! This should not be covered up! We
are understandably very angry and need answers. He shouldn’t have had a
death sentence for his mistakes!
The family is requesting anyone with ANY information please contact us:
Email: NeilEarly@bcaz.com Website: NeilEarly.com The Early Family PO Box 1138 Black Canyon City, AZ 85324
Original Post (1/21/15 6:41am)
Arizona state prison officials have kept the recent death of 23 year old ASP-Kingman prisoner Neil Early on the down low since it happened. My condolences to the family; I hope you sue - that's the only way you'll ever get to the truth. You sure can't trust the AZ DOC to get at it for you. Contact me if you don't know where to start: Peggy Plews at arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com or 480-580-6807.
I'd also like to hear from anyone else who can fill in the blanks - all I don't know about this kid's life, his dreams, and such that I can't find out from the AZ DOC website; I know there was more to him than what meets the eye. Send me a better picture, too, if you can.
Folks at Prison Talk suggest that Neil's death was a homicide, but none of the media outlets have reported it as such, and the DOC has nothing on their site (though his AZDOC profile has been updated to show he passed away.) Sadly, it appears he was having trouble with substance use in custody, up until shortly before his death. His judge did recommend he go to Marana facility for substance abuse treatment when he was sentenced. It's a shame they think (or pretend as if) people actually get any care in prison. They should have taken one look at him and known he would be prey in there, instead. It's time we stop sending non-violent offenders like him to prison on minimum mandatory sentences. That could be done this year, if the legislature had the will.
An inmate's death Monday at a private prison near Kingman has
prompted an investigation from the Arizona Department of Corrections,
according to a statement from the agency.
Neil Early, 23, was
serving a sentence for two counts of organized retail theft and drug
paraphernalia charges from 2011 in Maricopa County.
Early was
sentenced to a 5-year prison term in May 2012 after having previously
served less than a year in 2010 for for theft charges.
Condolences to Margaret's family. I received word from Perryville tonight that she was a diabetic, and had asked for medical attention shortly before she died because she wasn't feeling well. She was reportedly sent back to her cell without even having her glucose levels checked.
If anyone knows anything more about Margaret's death or her life and her loves, or if you are family and want help contacting a good wrongful death attorney (the only way to get to the truth about how she died), please reach me at:
Peggy Plews
PO Box 20494
Phoenix, AZ 85036
arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com
480-580-6807
Janice K. Brewer, Governor
ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
1601 W. Jefferson St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007
Charles L. Ryan,
Director
Tuesday, October 22, 2014
Inmate Death Notification
PHOENIX (Tuesday,
October 22, 2014) – Inmate Margaret Alvarado, 47, ADC #256176, was
pronounced dead of apparent natural causes after responders performed
lifesaving measures at her housing location.
Alvarado
was sentenced out of Maricopa County, serving eight years on a
conviction of Participating in a Criminal Street Gang. She came to ADC
on August 19, 2009 and was housed at ASPC – Perryville.
All inmate deaths are investigated in consultation with the county medical examiner’s office.
(EDITED/UPDATED OCTOBER 16, 2014): Thanks for your prayers, people - the prisoner whose suicide attempt prompted this post survived and has recovered enough to return to Perryville's Special Needs unit, as of Oct 14th.
Last week, a
dear friend of a dear friend was reported to have ended her life on
Santa Cruz yard in Perryville prison. Over the weekend I learned a
little about the kind of blessing this woman has been in the lives of
her friends and fellow prisoners, and determined to do something
special to help remember her by. As of 9/29 the DOC still hadn't posted
her death notice, and her record on line only showed that she was sent
out to the hospital on 9/25. Sometimes the DOC is pretty slow on
those, though, and I was pretty sure of my sources. So, first thing
Monday morning I hit Central Office to build a memorial for her and the
other women who have died by suicide or gross neglect under the
Brewer/Ryan administration. There are quite a few, some whose names and
stories I don't even know. Some stories I am all too familiar with,
though, like that of the beloved Gloria Rogers, whose suffering I'll
write about more in due time...
Apparently
none of this woman’s friends saw a suicide attempt coming, by the way -
she had just been returned to prison in August, having relapsed since
her parole last year. She had just done a decade behind bars, and was
now looking a six more years in prison, away from her family, as was her
partner in crime. But she was tough, and seemed like she could handle
it. She was certainly plagued by her addictions, but those who contacted
me about her didn't know of any serious mental health history that
would suggest she was at risk for this. They felt completely blindsided,
and devastated. Many successful suicides occur without clear warning,
though.
Out of respect for her privacy and that of her family's,
I'll defer naming this good soul until she recovers enough from this
trauma to give her permission or tell her story herself - or until the
DOC posts a death notice, if it turns out she passes away. Until then,
those of you searching for what happened to your friend on Santa Cruz
last week should just keep good thoughts in your hearts for her - she
may yet be holding on. And be sure to take advantage of this time of
uncertainty about her fate to tell those you love how much they mean to
you - especially if they are struggling now, or in exile. You never know
if you'll have the opportunity to do so tomorrow.
Finally, those
of you who are struggling yourselves with thoughts of ending your life
because you're in or are facing prison: chances are, there are people
in your life who need you nonetheless - they need you to make it through
this, or your death will haunt them forever. And there may be others
down the road you can help if you can figure out how to survive your
ordeal now. So, please don't take yourself out - study your rights, and
become a thorn in the DOC's side instead. Whatever you do, don't do
their dirty work for them.
My apologies to the working women from
Perryville who received misinformation and probably had to clean up
after me. I pray I never have cause to write that name on the sidewalk
again. The Ghosts of Jan Brewer number far too many already…
NEW PRISONER SUPPORT RESOURCE:
Carpe Locus Collective PO Box 7241 Tempe, AZ 85281
Helping
prisoners assert their civil rights in custody, and survive their
incarceration with self-help tips, copies of DOC policies and Jailhouse
Lawyer Handbooks, and whatever else they can afford to mail. They meet
every two weeks to answer letters.
“FREE VERSE” PO BOX 7241 Tempe, AZ 85281
The
Carpe Locus Collective is also putting together a zine for distribution
among prisoners, and are looking for art, poetry, essays, letters, etc.
Right now they’re helping transcribe a guide for new LGBT prisoners,
written by my own correspondents as they were battling the DOC for their
own survival. So think about what kind of collaboration you might want
to have with these folks, and help them amplify the prisoner’s voice!
PS - TO PERRYVILLE PRISONERS: No matter who you are, or what kind of hell you’re going through, you don’t have to do it completely alone. If you need help dealing with feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and the thought that the world would be better off without you - or you without the rest of us, don’t surrender to your shame or your fear. Talk to someone who loves you to anchor you here, before you even think about leaving them that way.
Now, if you think you’re unloved or unlovable and have no one who cares if you live or die, go out and find someone who needs to be loved more than you do and love them as if your own life depends on it. They are probably in your life already. In short time, if you treat the rest of the people around you the same way - looking for ways to be a blessing in their lives, however small - you’ll find that you have become a valued member of your community whose presence heals. Then, even if you expect to be buried in an orange jumpsuit someday, those feelings that nearly drove you to leave your children or sister or cellie grieving your suicide for a lifetime will no longer have room to dwell…
I promise you, that’s a much better way to be free.
Take care of eachother, please.
Peggy Plews
------------------------
If you need help dealing with your own mental health crisis or that of a loved one, THE NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION LIFELINE is a free, 24/7 service that can provide suicidal persons or those around them with support, information and local resources.
Fabian's family reports that he was strangled to death by another prisoner at ASPC-Winslow after being denied Protective Custody three times...sounds like he fought for his life to the end.
There will be a car wash to try to raise funds for Fabian's funeral expenses on Saturday, September 27 from 8am-3pm in Mesa at the corner of Mesa Drive and Broadway - there's a tire shop across from the Circle K there that will host them. Please support. He left 4 kids behind, so they can use all the help we can give them.
----------------
Condolences to this young man's loved ones. If anyone knows anything about Fabian's life or death, please contact me at arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com or PO Box 20494 Phoenix, AZ 85036. If you are Fabian's family and need help getting records from the AZ DOC or contacting an attorney familiar with suing the state, please contact me as well - I'll do what I can to help. My name is Peggy Plews. My number is 480-580-6807.
WINSLOW, (Monday September 22, 2014) – Inmate Fabian Lozano, 26, ADC
#260873, was pronounced deceased on September 19, 2014. The cause of
death is under investigation.
Lozano was sentenced out of Maricopa County and was serving one and a
half years in prison for aggravated assault. He returned to ADC
custody on March 7, 2014 and was housed at ASPC – Winslow.
All inmate deaths are investigated in consultation with the county medical examiner’s office.
As many of my friends in Phoenix know, from time to time over the course of the past few years an awesome Australian filmmaker by the name of PJ Starr has come out to visit me and film area activists for her documentary about the death of Marcia Powell - the catalyst for Arizona Prison Watch to be born in the summer of 2009.
Well, folks, it's finally almost done. We need some help to finish it, though, so please give if you can - there's anIndigogo fund set up for it, and we can really use your help. The title of the film comes from a time when the cops would document homicide victims as being male or female; in the case of prostitutes, however, they would write "NO HUMAN INVOLVED".
Here's PJ talking about "No Human Involved", along with the trailer - it looks really compelling.
Thanks to Ruth Jacobs for this interview.
Please help Free Marcia Powell, and visit the Indigogo page...
PJ Starr – picture taken during filming Photo credit: Mike Shipley
Can you tell me about your current project No Human Involved?
In 2009 my friend and colleague Cris
Sardina (who is now the co-coordinator of the Desiree Alliance) sent me
an email about the death of Marcia Powell in Perryville Prison outside
of Phoenix, Arizona. Marcia had been serving a 27 month sentence for
solicitation of prostitution and corrections officers had left her out
in the sun in a metal cage in searing heat until she collapsed. Soon
after, in hospital her life was ended when the Director of Arizona
Department of Corrections removed her from life support.
Cris Sardina of Desiree Alliance holding pictures of Marcia Powell Photo credit: PJ Starr
After reading about what happened, Marcia’s story was always with me.
Later in 2010 at the Filmmakers’
Collaborative at the Maysles Institute in Harlem, NYC, I began to
develop the idea of investigating Marcia’s case as a potential
documentary film. Many of my peers at Maysles—who were people with a lot
of community organizing knowledge already—were quite astounded by the
sentence she was serving and what had happened to her. I knew then that
documenting what had happened to Marcia Powell could be a vital step in
educating the general public about the real harms caused to people in
the sex trade by the prison industrial complex.
It was a departure for me to embark on
this documentary for a wide range of reasons. In 2010 I didn’t know
anyone in Phoenix, I wasn’t acquainted with the organizing there and I
didn’t know Marcia personally either. My previous work had always been
with folks I had known for years. But my film mentor Carol Leigh
encouraged me to try this new step and connected me to several key
activists in Phoenix, most importantly with Peggy Plews of Arizona
Prison Watch. In March of 2011, I visited Peggy and several other the
local activists to ask if they thought the film should be made and if my
approach appealed to them. I knew from being involved in grassroots
organizing that so often “outside experts” suck the energy out of
community to “tell a news story” or make a film and this was something I
wanted to avoid doing. Everything fell into place during that first
journey, we all were on the same page. People were also beginning to
reflect on how Marcia’s death had set a series of events in motion and
wanted to talk about that in the context of a documentary.
What do you hope this project will achieve?
Chalking by Peggy Plews of Arizona Prison Watch
I want people to understand that what
happened to Marcia can happen again. The film is not about an isolated,
shocking incident (even though the case is horrific), rather it explores
an example that exposes the system. As a member of Phoenix Food Not
Bombs said at Marcia’s memorial service in 2009, “this has happened
before, it will happen again, it happens to men, women and transgender
people.” There is a mistaken belief amongst concerned people out there
that somehow going to prison can “turn someone’s life around” and help
people “escape” prostitution or drug use. So, the first part of the
message of NO HUMAN INVOLVED is that prison is not safe, you don’t get
comprehensive services there, you are dehumanized. If you are a woman
who doesn’t conform to a very narrow set of gender norms set out in
prison, you are at greater risk, or if you are trans, or queer, or if
you have a mental health issue. The second part is that a web of
terrible laws and policies—ranging from statutes to prevent walking and
sleeping in public space and surviving through sex work—are sending
people to prison for very long periods of time under mandatory
sentencing. And to spell out the point, I think there are many, many
people in the general public who want women like Marcia to “be helped”
but they don’t yet understand the real functioning of the law, how
policing happens, what happens to you in the court room and the system
that classifies you once you are inside a prison. NO HUMAN INVOLVED
unpacks all of this step by step so that audiences can think differently
about what needs to change. The film is also raises awareness about the
sheer numbers of people being arrested under the current
criminalization of the sex trade in Arizona and the sheer numbers of
people being placed in jails and prisons for doing what they need to
live.
Can you share about the research you’ve undertaken to get this off the ground?
When I first started developing the film
idea in 2010 and early 2011, I read a lot of online materials and
reports about Marcia’s death. Since then the ACLU Arizona has published
some very important documents about the experiences of prisoners that
also form background information for the film. Over time NO HUMAN
INVOLVED has evolved into very much a community project. Even though I
have experience in doing research, finding accurate information relating
to incarceration has been a learning curve and I am in awe of what
folks in Phoenix can do. A colleague in Arizona has shown me how to
request extremely detailed information from Arizona Department of
Corrections and my good friend Monica Jones not only explained how the
courts function in Arizona but encouraged me to find recordings and
video tapes of Marcia’s court appearances. Kini Seawright (of the
Seawright Prison Justice Project), has helped me seek out connections in
the activist community to find people who personally knew Marcia. Kini
keeps me putting my heart into the film. I’ve spoken to scores of people
to record background interviews, including some with amazing women who
were in Perryville with Marcia who have shared about who she was and how
she was treated. I’ve met and interviewed people from the corrections
system and a local filmmaker gave me truly vital original footage of
Charles Ryan (the director of the Department of Corrections) speaking
about the case at a memorial for Marcia organized by activists in 2009.
In order to document how the community has responded in the years since
Marcia’s death, I’ve attended (and filmed) church services, memorials,
meetings at local women’s groups, rallies, actions, I’ve filmed (with
permission) in the court and spoken to law enforcement. I’ve seen (and
documented) the emergence of SWOP Phoenix as a presence to challenge the
policing practices that put Marcia on that path to Perryville Prison.
What stage is the project at currently?
I am working with a very dedicated editor
in the NYC area on the second cut of the film. Once we have enough
funding, we will refine it, and create the DVD to begin the film’s
distribution. As with most films these days NO HUMAN INVOLVED has been a
labor of love (ie unfunded) but there are certain things such as
mastering the DVD that I need to have done professionally in order to
get Marcia’s story the attention it deserves.
Are you looking for people to be involved?
If folks are on social media they should follow/like the NO HUMAN INVOLVED project on Facebook and Twitter or send me an email to get updates as the film is completed and released. Currently I am hosting the first online fundraiser
I have ever done to support one of my own creative projects to raise
what we need for the absolutely essential things that a really polished
documentary needs. Donations are tax deductible and every cent will be
going back to support the film.
In the future as we plan actions and
connect to campaigns related to the film, there will be many other
things for people to engage with so please find a way to get in touch. I
am also always happy to share what I have learned with others in the
community so if a reader wants support in developing a rights based
project related to the theme of NO HUMAN INVOLVED then I am happy to do
as much as I can to share information, skills and connections.
Who is the target audience and what message do you want them to take away with them?
With
this film I am taking a step out to interface with people who may know a
little about the impact of incarceration but who have not yet had a
chance to connect the dots about anti-prostitution policies, policing,
the prison industrial complex and people in the community who also
happen to be engaged (or profiled as engaging) in sex work. And even
though as rights based activists we have collectively made enormous
strides in explaining all of this, I am sure that there is a very large
number of people out there who want to do the right thing by the
communities of people mentioned in the film (sex workers, people with
mental health issues, people with experiences of incarceration) but need
more information. The film is a rights project engaging with the
audience to explain that prisons are not a solution and that human
rights, not “rescue” by the police, are what work best. The phrase “no
human involved” indicates that the powers that be are not interested in
investigating violence committed against certain groups of people
because their lives are considered unimportant. The documentary NO HUMAN
INVOLVED reaffirms Marcia’s humanity and is an investigation of its own
kind. Finally, the phrase “free Marcia Powell” (first used by Peggy
Plews of Arizona Prison Watch) is repeated throughout the film and will
anchor social media strategies in a call for liberation of Marcia’s
spirit and all those who are still incarcerated.
What are your plans for the future?
Once NO HUMAN INVOLVED is completed, I
will turn my activist attention to ensuring the film leads to the change
that we intend. But I am also beginning to work on another project with
Monica and some other people in Phoenix.
Where can people find out more about your project?
For very honest and insightful
information from someone who has worked within the Department of
Corrections at a senior level, I recommend the various writings of Carl Toersbijns.
To support the final phase of producing the documentary NO HUMAN INVOLVED click here to donate to the Indiegogo campaign.
Another suicide, this one at ASPC-Tucson/Cimarron (a pretty rough yard, by all accounts). All I can tell you about John Kahler is that while he was being held in the county jail, pending trial, he was deemed incompetent to aid in his defense ( I suspect he was symptomatic when he committed his crime, and should maybe not even have been prosecuted...). Within days of being found competent, he pled guilty to get the hell out of the Maricopa County jail - and got placed on mental health probation. It appears he planned to do his four years in Montana, but he apparently violated his probation within a short period of time, pleading guilty during a "group advisement" - he was immediately sent to prison by Commissioner J. Justin McGuire, it appears, no discussion.
How sad they couldn't give him another chance. That 5 year prison stint became a death sentence, as John was only in the custody of the AZ DOC less than 2 months before killing himself...and based on all the mail and calls I get about Corizon's poor mental health care, I'd bet they weren't treating his mental illness appropriately. He must have felt terribly alone, if his family was back in Montana. Condolences to John's loved ones. If anyone knows anything more about his life or death, please contact me. I am Peggy Plews at arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com
john kahler, 51
ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
1601 W. JEFFERSON PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85007 (602) 542-3133
TUCSON (Friday, September 05, 2014) – An inmate at the Tucson prison complex has died as the result of an apparent suicide.
51 year-old John Kahler, ADC#
292841, was found unresponsive in his housing location at approximately
8:50 AM. Officers immediately responded and began lifesaving measures
which were continued by paramedics. Kahler was later pronounced
deceased at a local hospital.
Kahler was serving a five year
sentence out of Maricopa County on a conviction for arson of an occupied
structure, and had been in ADC custody since July, 2014.
All deaths are investigated in consultation with the county medical examiner’s office.
I know nothing of the circumstances of this suicide, or any of this man's struggles. I can, however, tell you that from his DOC record it appears as if he was actually at ASPC-PHX/Alhambra, not at Ft. Grant in Safford, when this happened- which is where the DOC has its intake unit, and where they assess prisoners who are seriously mentally ill. That tells me he was in a known psychiatric crisis of some kind already. Condolences to Barry's loved ones; I can refer you to an attorney if you need one - it may be the only way to get to the bottom of how and why he died. I can also use your help, if you want to fight back.
If anyone out there knows more about this man's life or death, please drop me a line at arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com.
---------------------
ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
1601 W. JEFFERSON PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85007 (602) 542-3133
SAFFORD (Wednesday, August 27, 2014) – An inmate at the Ft. Grant unit of ASPC-Safford has died in an apparent suicide.
55 year-old inmate Barry Wilkins, ADC #070104 was found unresponsive
Wednesday morning by ADC personnel who began lifesaving measures that
were continued by paramedics upon their arrival. Medical personnel
later pronounced Wilkins dead.
Wilkins was admitted to ADC custody on September 16, 2002. He was
sentenced out of Maricopa County on multiple charges including burglary,
theft, unlawful use of a means of transportation, criminal damage,
forgery, fraudulent use of a credit card, criminal damage and resisting
arrest.
All inmate deaths are investigated in consultation with the county medical examiner’s office.
