Rep Campbell calls for DOC Oversight hearings; former DW Toersbijns weighs in

this link here is probably what you're looking for: Campbell came through, as promised, on July 23, 2013:
 

AZ LEG Leader Chad Campbell: Time for DOC Director Ryan's resignation.

 

the rest of this post below is an old one.... 

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

Rep Campbell calls for DOC Oversight hearings; former DW Toersbijns weighs in
March 1, 2013

Maricopa County Superior Courthouse

Day of the Dead Prisoners (November 1, 2012)

Earlier this week, after watching AZ DOC prisoner Tony Lester lay dying without any first aid or comfort from the officers responsible for caring for him, AZ House Minority Leader Chad Campbell called for legislative hearings on the problems with the DOC, and suggested that Charles Ryan may need to leave office so the state can recover from his tenure. 

Here's the clip. Bless and thank Chad Campbell for this:





My friend and colleague, former ASPC-Eyman/SMUI Deputy Warden Carl Toersbijns, wrote the open letter below in response. Thank you Carl, for sharing this with us. I encourage everyone with someone in AZ stat prisons that they love to write him as well, and to write to Wendy Halloran and KPNX to thank them for the role their expose has played in helping bring some of the darkest abuses in AZ prisons to light. 

Chad Campbell (and your own Representative) can be reached at:

AZ House of Representatives
1700 W. Washington, Room 320
Phoenix, AZ 85007
Phone Number: (602) 926-3026
Fax Number: (602) 417-3037

 chcampbell@azleg.gov

Please cc KPNX and your own State Representative on that letter to Rep. Campbell.

 

The contact for Wendy and KPNX 12 news is:

KPNX CH12 200 E. Van Buren St., Phoenix, AZ 85004 

 connect@ad.gannett.com

  

Letters to the Arizona Republic about the need for an investigation into the violence and suicides in the prisons would help, too. Now is the time:

Letters to the Editor - The Arizona Republic

P.O. Box 1950 Phoenix, AZ 85001

link: Letters to the Editor

fax (602) 444-8933

-------now for Carl's letter-------

March 1, 2o013

Dear Minority Leader Chad Campbell,

I just saw you the other day on television and you appeared to be enraged about what you saw in Wendy Halloran’s television report aired on Friday night. This report was just the tip of the iceberg as the Arizona Department of Corrections is infiltrated and dominated with a culture that is harmful to staff and inmates within the system. Not judging them or even casting stones at them for a most difficult job they have in running a prison system I do criticize them to the fullest my Bill of Rights give me.

I criticize them for ignoring human decency and human rights. The willful ignorance of denying a human being from being treated fair and square under the rule of law should not be an acceptable methodology to run prisons anywhere. Strangely we were all shocked at the Abu Ghraib scandal but when we reveal our own scandal here within Arizona prisons being run by the same man that was instrumental in setting up the Abu Ghraib prison mentality and culture, it is most acceptable and without a peep of outrage or disgust.

I criticize them for ignoring sound correctional practices being used throughout the United States but not inside our own prisons. It appears that the lack of statutory regulations on how a prison should be run is being left up to the discretion of one man appointed by the governor in a political situation rather than a justified and ethical one.

I criticize the legislature for allowing free rein of the prison system without oversight and levels of accountability as they encourage the cloak and dagger scenario of non-transparency and ask no question on its business.

I criticize the Governor for her hands-off attitude and letting the director destroy a good penal system single handed and decimating staff morale by implementing personnel and disciplinary policies that create low morale and high discipline unjust and unwarranted as it is politically motivated as it sits on paper.

I criticize the people of Arizona, myself included, for allowing the high number of deaths and violence [mostly gang related] to exist and not lift a hand to stop it. I am appalled by the apathy and nonchalant attitudes that prevail when we talk about prison abuse and staffing patterns that induce severe public safety issues as it creates severe gaps of safety nets once in place to control the prison systems effectively and efficiently.

I criticize and blame the lobbyist of private prisons and other entities enlisted to bring more hybrid governance with our government for the wrong reasons. Instead of saving money we are spending more. They foster and influence this mentality to lock people up for longer sentences for minor crimes to district attorneys, county prosecutors, judges, sheriffs and correctional administrators that to lock people up is good for business not realizing the money flow will stop one day.

Most of all, I criticize the growth and the wealth of the private prison business, the food business, the medical and healthcare business, the telephone business, the commissary business, the agriculture business, the fabrication business, the furniture business and the slavery [cheap labor of inmates] and the business of paying off legislators so they will embrace and endorse more growth in prison related activities within Arizona. These jobs could in fact be filled by those unemployed in various communities.

I applaud those that stand alone in their will and refusal to join these gatherings of vultures [corrupt political leaders] that have sold their soul for a penny here and a dollar there. Their greed and lust for power, influence and control has been transferred to the director of the prison system so he can rule autonomously without following the rule of law. They are literally picking the flesh off the left behind of those that died. 

This is why Arizona prisons will soon fail and explode into a revolution that will result in personal harm or death, destruction of state property and jeopardize the safety of all those communities wherein these prisons are located until the local and state law enforcement agencies can re-take control of these facilities and conduct a comprehensive and factual after-action review that will glean every detail I have just criticized.

Carl Toersbijns

Watching Tony Die: Case dismissed against officers who withheld first aid.

Remembering Tony Lester

Day of the Dead Prisoners (Nov 1, 2013)

Maricopa County Superior Courthouse

Most readers will remember the story of Tony Lester, a 26-year old seriously mentally ill Native American AZ state prisoner who cut his throat in Tucson prison in July 2009. He bled out over the course of at least ten minutes as five AZ Department of Corrections officers stood around and watched without making the slightest effort to render first aid. The family filed a massive lawsuit against the AZ DOC for their failure to act (and for giving Tony the razor in the first place), but the critical part that was lodged against those five officers was dismissed last month. Once I have a copy of Judge Talamante's ruling on that, I'll be writing my own response to him.

Thanks to the work of Wendy Halloran and Channel 12 News at KNPX, those officers actions are at least visible for the rest of the community to see now. The names of the brave and noble AZ Department of Corrections officers watching Tony die are: Orlando Pope, Humberto Hernandez, Rene Barcelo, Dale Brown, and Danielle Pedroso. The judge apparently agreed with experts who said that since these officers couldn't have saved Tony's life if they tried, it's alright that they didn't even bother.


I wonder if five police officers did nothing at an accident scene but film the dying victims, for example, if that kind of abdication of a first-responder's duty to care would have been okay with this judge as well. That's not equal protection under the law if it's acceptable for officers to withhold first aid from a dying prisoner just because they're too freaked out to render it, but it's not alright for a first responder in the community to do so. These peace officers should all lose their AZ POST certification for their gross neglect of duty - they shouldn't even be allowed to be security guards for McDonald's: children would end up choking to death while these idiots record it for Youtube.

Please, after viewing this report, reach out to KPNX at connect@ad.gannett.com and thank them for caring enough about mentally ill prisoners to air it. We want them to cover such human rights violations in the prisons more in the future.

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

Inmate suicide response captured on video

By Wendy Halloran  
KPNX 12 News | azcentral.com  

Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:59 PM

from KPNX/azcentral.com

Here are the Arizona Department of Corrections' finest at work...

What follows is the argument that the lawyers made defending the inaction of these officers to Channel 12 News before the above video was released - presumably this was what they pitched to Judge David Talamante, who fell for it and threw the case out. 

I wonder if the good Dr. Harvey W. Meislin, the Director of the Arizona Emergency Medicine Research Center at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, would have also argued that since Tony was already so far gone, it was even pointless for the emergency personnel to try to help him, and that they should have also shown Tony their indifference as he lay dying....I think not. I suspect his slant on this was just swayed by the sweet check he'd get for his expert testimony, and his own faulty presumption that prisoners are not entitled to the same standard of medical care that the rest of us are. That's certainly not someone I want in charge of teaching our next generation either the science or the ethics of emergency medical care - for which he receives my tax dollars....

 --------------------

From: David Cantelme [mailto:David@cantelaw.com]

Sent: Friday, February 22, 2013 9:18 AM

To: Halloran, Wendy

Subject: Inmate Anthony Lester and Arizona Department of Corrections

Dear Wendy,

I understand that you are doing a follow-up on Inmate Anthony Lester and the response of the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) after Inmate Lester’s cellmate notified ADC officers that he was bleeding. As you know, my law firm represents the State of Arizona and ADC in the lawsuit brought by Inmate Lester's mother. I am available for comment, as is Aaron Brown, my law partner. In case we do not connect, here are some points that should be conveyed to the public to make sure it has all the facts:

Plaintiffs could not produce any evidence indicating that the actions of the ADC Officers in responding to Inmate Anthony Lester’s injuries in any way fell below their standard of care or that they in any way caused or contributed to Inmate Lester’s death. Accordingly, Superior Judge David Talamante granted judgment for the State of Arizona on the claim that ADC Officers failed to render proper aid to Inmate lester.

Sometime before 7:35 p.m. on the evening of July 11, 2010, Inmate Lester’s right carotid artery and right internal and external jugular vein were completely severed while he was in his cell. These wounds would have caused immediate significant blood loss. As Dr. Terrence O’Keefe, the emergency treating surgeon, indicated during his deposition, the blood exiting the neck wounds would have initially been visibly pulsating (arterial wound) and briskly flowing (jugular wound) out of the wound. There is no evidence indicating that any of the first responders observed Mr. Lester actively bleeding from his neck wounds.

Moreover, the treating paramedics placed a gauze bandage over Mr. Lester’s neck wound and the bandage did not immediately saturate with blood. The video recording of Mr. Lester shows at its first footage that he was unconscious and in profound hypovolemic shock, which would have resulted from severe blood loss. Additionally, Mr. Lester’s left arm was in a decorticate posture, which is indicative of possible brain damage.

All this indicates that, before the ADC Officers arrived at the scene, Inmate Lester’s body had lost too much of his blood supply to allow him to survive. At that point, there was little anyone could do to save his life. While en route to UMC, Mr. Lester went into cardiac arrest because of hypovolemic shock.

The ADC Officers that responded to the emergency involving Mr. Lester immediately summoned Tucson Fire paramedics, which were located directly across the street from the prison grounds, and, by all accounts, appear to have done everything possible to assist in transporting Mr. Lester to UMC so that he could receive advanced medical care. Once Mr. Lester arrived at UMC, physicians performed an emergency ED thoracotomy followed by open cardiac massage. He was placed on rapid transfusion protocol and received multiple units of blood products, all to no avail. Mr. Lester was then transferred to the operating room for operative intervention for the thoracotomy and the neck wound. Mr. Lester’s neck wounds, including his internal right carotid artery and jugular vein were ligated. However, Mr. Lester was highly coagulopathic and continued to bleed from his wounds. Despite the heroic efforts of the trauma team at UMC, Mr. Lester's life could not be saved.

The response made by the ADC Officers was reviewed by Dr. Harvey W. Meislin, who is board certified in Emergency Medicine, is a Professor with tenure in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine, and is the Director of the Arizona Emergency Medicine Research Center at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center.

Had Judge Talamante not thrown out this claim, we would have called Dr. Meislin to the stand and he would have testified that ADC employees responded reasonably and appropriately to the emergency on July 11, 2010, and met the applicable standard of care in providing first aid by doing everything reasonably possible to summon paramedics so that Mr. Lester could be immediately transported to definitive care at UMC. Mr. Lester’s survivability was dependent upon transportation and arrival to the trauma center where definitive management of his wounds could and would take place. 

Dr. Meislin would have testified that under the specific circumstances of this case, application of pressure to Mr. Lester’s neck wounds was not called for and would not have served any useful purpose. Dr. Meislin was also of the opinion that no act or alleged omission by ADC employees in responding to Mr. Lester’s emergency caused or contributed to his death. Thank you for your attention to these facts.

David J. Cantelme

Cantelme & Brown, P.L.C.

A Professional Liability Corporation

3003 N. Central Avenue, Suite 600

*Please note our new address*

Phoenix, Arizona 85012

djc@cb-attorneys.com

Telephone:(602) 200-0125

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

Finally, the links below will take you to the full report on Tony's death - follow them and please thank Wendy and KPNX for caring enough to bring this to light...

How We Did It
By Wendy Halloran 
 12 News | azcentral.com  

Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:59 PM
 

12 News investigative reporter Wendy Halloran has been asking questions for more than two years about what happened to Tony Lester.

Halloran’s public records’ requests to the Arizona Department of Corrections began in the fall of 2010, just months after Lester died. In June 2011, she requested a copy of a video that captured how corrections officers responded when they found Lester bleeding in his cell. ADOC denied the request, citing the privacy interests of Lester’s surviving family members, who had filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging officers stood by and and did not render first aid.

In July 2012, Halloran renewed her request for the video. It was again denied.

In September, Halloran tried again with the permission of Tony Lester’s family. ADOC denied her request a third time. Later that month, Halloran was allowed to watch the video at the law firm representing the state. She then requested the first 12 minutes of the video that showed how the officers responded. She was again denied.

12 News filed a special action in Superior Court in October asking that a judge review the matter. The following month, ADOC was ordered to produce the video to the station. The judge found ADOC wrongfully denied Halloran’s public records request, and the department agreed to pay more than $26,000 in attorneys’ fees to the station.

Watch Wendy Halloran’s previous reports on Tony Lester:

• 12 News investigation leads to viewer outrage over inmate's suicide
• Arizona inmate's family watches his death video
• Arizona inmate suicide: Failure to aid, Part 2
• Arizona inmate suicide: Did correction officers fail to administer aid?

Deaths in Custody: Watching Tony Die.

Most readers familiar with the crisis of violence and despair in Arizona's state prisons in recent years  are aware of the story of Tony Lester. If you aren't please watch Wendy Halloran's emmy-winning investigation at the top of this page on KPNX/Channel 12 News / PHX. They have a follow up episode coming up tonight, February 22, at 10pm...


Tony was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2010 for hurting two ex-girlfriends who tried to prevent him from cutting his own throat when suicidal and psychotic on his 23rd birthday. He had been struggling increasingly with symptoms of mental illness, which went untreated until the crisis that sent him to jail instead of a psychiatric hospital.  There they found him to be so severely mentally ill that it took over a year to restore him sufficiently to sanity to prosecute him as if he'd been sane all along. Then it took another nine months for him to recover from the trial enough to be sentenced. 


This state is exceptionally cruel.

Once sent off to prison, despite recommendations from the judge that he be placed in a special mental health treatment setting, Tony's illness still wasn't treated properly. He was left to suffer in prison without his anti-psychotic medications while his paranoia mounted. He was placed on a general population yard where he was soon confronted by the Warrior Society, a prison gang which informed him he wouldn't be allowed to live safely on the yard, in part, due to being a known bi-sexual. Tony's assault convictions had been tagged as domestic violence, which was another big strike against him...

Violating each other in our honor is not how to reduce violence against women, by the way, gentlemen. It diminishes us all.

Not surprisingly, facing 12 years like this, the next opportunity Tony had to cut his own throat - when handed a razor by DOC staff - he was sure to do the job right. He was no doubt fearful that what the other prisoners had in mind for him was far more traumatic than any death he could bring on himself. 

When Tony was discovered by AZ DOC staff, they just stood by and watched him die...

Tonight Wendy Halloran will be following up on this story with some of the footage of the last minutes of Tony's life, while five corrections' officers stood around and watched him bleed out. Please watch KPNX Channel 12 PHX Friday Feb 22 at 10pm, then send your comments to connect@ad.gannett.com.

Let Channel 12 know we need to see more of what's happening behind prison walls, because what happened to Tony isn't the exception  - this kind of deliberate indifference to - rather, outright contempt for human life is all too common at the AZ DOC. The suicide and homicide rates in state prisons doubled once Chuck Ryan took over, and haven't abated yet. Something is seriously wrong in there.

Ask them to look into the other deaths in custody, the practicality of a new supermax prison, the problems with privatizing the health care services for prisoners, and so on. Le tthem know there's an audienc eout here or that stuff, or the tone they'll hear from the community when they cover a prisoner's suicide will be left at "good riddance - give them all rope!". Let's not let those kinds of people dominate the dialogue on life and death for the most vulnerable in prison. Please watch the show AND give feedback.

Victims of the State: The family of Tony Lester to Steve Twist.

The aunt of Tony Lester and the mother of Dana Seawright

remember other victims and survivors of state violence, neglect and abuse

at the AZ Crime Victims' Memorial, AZ State Capitol.

(March 9, 2012)

 

Steve Twist's June 16 editorial in the AZ Republic defending the AZ DOC (dismissing the research and articles done by investigative journalist Bob Ortega earlier this month as "malicious) has invited a response from the family of Tony Lester. His Aunt, Patti Jones, forwarded the following comment to us. 

I urge other families who have lost loved ones to the state prison system due to violence, abuse and neglect to read Twist's letter and post to the AZ Republic's site as well. He's the guy who explicitly wrote prisoners out of the AZ Victims Bill of Rights, making the state and state agents the only criminal perpetrators whose injured and dead are constitutionally deprived of the rights all other victims (and their survivors) can count on.

I think we should invite Mr. Twist and his prosecutorial colleagues to help us rewrite that part of the state constitution, so that every rape, murder, and abuse victim's rights are equally protected, whether or not they are in custody for an offense...if he won't then at the very least he should get out of the way of those trying to reduce further victimization of prisoners and trauma to their families...

------------from Patti Jones---------------

"First of all Mr. Twist I realize that we as United States citizens are entitled to freedom of Speech that is what I LOVE about our country so well.  I certainly appreciate your input regarding your opinion in regards to the INHUMANE TREATMENT within our AZ Prisons, but I am a NAIVE OUTSIDER looking in; to the treatment of the mentally- ill prisoners within our prisons.

It was not until my Nephew Anthony Lester was placed into the ADOC that our Family realized the mentality of all prison officials regarding the care and treatment of our mentally-ill. Especially when all prison staff and administrators were repeatedly warned of Tony's fragile mental state of mind and when Doctors within the prison were warned of the voices that Tony heard and all prison staff referred to Tony as a Manipulator and Gaimer of the system....

From the moment our family received the news of Tony's injuries we were told that he was taken to hospital with non life threatening injuries, and then to receive  a call a few hours later that Tony had died!!!!   Then  the worse thing was to view this ICS Video taken that night that Tony committed suicide which showed a  nineteen and half minute video in which for approximately twelve minutes correctional officers stood, rummaging through the cell looking for a suicide note shining a small flashlight on Tony watching him bleed, gurgle, gasp moan struggle to breath, not one officer stepped forward to even try to render aid, now there excuse not to render aid is that he was pretty much dead so there was no need to render aid although medics when they arrived did not think twice whether or not to render aid..... What kind of human being stands around and watch someone bleed to death?????

Now the state and ADOC have placed a protective order upon this video, if these correctional officers did their job and rendered aid then why is there a protective order placed upon this video????  Answer is that if anyone were to see this it would show the total disrespect for human life...

Tony and our entire family accepted his punishment and trusted the system and the system failed Tony and more importantly my sister Tony's mother Eleanor lost her only child.  Prisons are for punishment not for the mentally ill to be warehoused and abandoned, especially when several judges recommended that Tony be placed in a mental health unit and court ordered to stay on psychotropic medications.  

I realize Mr.Twist you feel prisoners are treated humanely, but how many family members and ex prison inmates tell you repeatedly how the treatment is inhumane; you feel there is humane treat but that is what ADOC and the state would like one to think, that's what I thought until our NIGHTMARE began!!!!!

We are so much better than this we are the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!!  Not a third world country, we can close our eyes to these injustices this cycle of inhumanity will continue other mothers will loose their children, the mentally-ill will be abandoned as outcasts rejects of society unless people such as Bob Ortega, KPNX channel 12 Wendy Halloran step forward and expose these travesties...."

Ortega: AZ Prison suicide attempts still on the rise.

Kini Seawright at the Herberger's Stage Door 
February 20, 2012

Even I didn't know about some of the reported circumstances surrounding these prisoner deaths below. Thanks, Bob Ortega and the other folks who care about human rights and human life at the AZ Republic, from myself and the many families devastated by these (and far too many more) AZ prison suicides under the administrations of Chuck Ryan and Jan Brewer. I think we're stuck with Brewer for the rest of her term, but it's way past time for Ryan to go.

Here's the moving slideshow of prisoners put together by the AZ Republic for this series...check it out at the source.

-------from the Arizona Republic--------

Critics: 'Maximum security' a factor in prison suicide rate 

Bob Ortega
Arizona Republic
June 2, 2012

Nearly every day, an inmate in an Arizona prison attempts suicide. In the past two years, 19 succeeded.

Among those who died:

Otto Munster hanged himself with his shoelaces while in solitary confinement.

Tony Lester slashed his throat, arms and groin with a razor blade he wasn't supposed to have because he was categorized as mentally ill. He bled to death.

Rosario Rodriguez-Bojorquez killed himself while in solitary after being denied a request to be moved to protect him from other inmates.

Duron Cunningham killed himself six days after Rodriguez-Bojorquez, while in solitary in the same unit, also after being denied a move into protective segregation. He had been raped and assaulted, according to prison reports.

Karot Phothong hanged himself with a bedsheet while in solitary confinement, or "maximum security," the term used by the Arizona Department of Corrections.

Corrections data and internal reports obtained by The Arizona Republic show 470 attempts by inmates to harm themselves or commit suicide in the 11 months through the end of May. Self-harm includes inmates slashing their arms, swallowing razor blades, repeatedly banging their heads against the wall and similar incidents.

The result: Arizona's official prison-suicide rate was 60 percent higher than the national average for the past two years, according to federal Bureau of Justice statistics.

A majority of the suicides -- 11 -- involved inmates locked in maximum security, where they are kept alone in windowless units with the lights on 24 hours a day and are allowed to leave their cells only a few times a week to shower or exercise by themselves.

While more than half of the suicides in Arizona prisons were by inmates in maximum-security solitary confinement, "max" inmates make up less than 9 percent of the total prison population of about 40,000.
Corrections officials defend the use of maximum security, saying it's necessary to protect inmates and maintain order.

But academic and human-rights critics believe the suicide figures reveal a problematic use of solitary confinement. They attribute Arizona's high suicide rate to three overlapping practices: the use of solitary confinement to house mentally ill prisoners, inmates who are unruly rather than violent and inmates who may be targeted by other prisoners.

"High rates of suicide in solitary units is a widespread problem; that's why many states no longer house mentally ill inmates in solitary," said Craig Haney, a psychologist at the University of California-Santa Cruz who studies the effects of incarceration. "The severity of the conditions in those units ... most mentally healthy people who go in are adversely affected. People can become so despairing, so desperate that they take their own lives."

Solitary as discipline

 

Arizona puts more prisoners in solitary for longer stretches than most states and the federal government. While many Arizona inmates are in maximum security because they are violent and present a threat to staff and other prisoners, 35 percent of the inmates currently in max were imprisoned for non-violent crimes, according to the state's own data. Corrections officials routinely assign non-violent prisoners to maximum security for disruptive behavior or for violating minor rules.

Carl ToersBijns, a retired deputy warden who served at Eyman state prison, among other places, said that maximum-custody units are filled with people put there because of repetitive misconduct. He said they should be placed in treatment programs instead.

"If a deputy warden finds you to be problematic, they can manufacture a packet to place you in max custody for 12 months. It's a year's review, and central office rarely goes against a warden's recommendations," he said.

That's how many mentally ill inmates wind up in maximum security -- because they can't control their behavior, says Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist and former Harvard Medical School professor who has spent decades studying the effects of solitary confinement.

In Arizona, inmates sent to solitary for breaking rules have to show they can behave before they are allowed to get out. But this approach "is based on a false premise," says Grassian. "It's based on the notion that inmates in solitary can rationally calculate risks and benefits, that if you give them enough negative consequences they'll change their behavior in a positive direction. But the people who end up in solitary are precisely the least likely to be able to respond rationally."

Solitary "is a shortsighted, expedient approach to prisoner management," he said. "It's expensive; it's risky; and I don't believe there's a sufficient correctional justification for its use."

Many longtime correctional officials defend maximum custody and solitary as necessary to control dangerous or troublesome inmates. Ben Shaw, director of mental-health programs for Arizona's Department of Corrections, says that being in maximum custody doesn't in and of itself cause any decline in mental functioning.

Grassian disagrees. "Many people who didn't have a mental illness become psychotically ill as a result of being incarcerated in solitary confinement," says Grassian. And those who are already mentally ill become worse, he notes.

Haney said that inmates in solitary confinement can become more violent and less able to control themselves -- and more of a danger to the public when they're released.

An inmate's mental condition is usually established by the time he or she enters prison. Otto Munster, for example, was arrested for armed robbery in March 2011, and underwent three psychiatric evaluations before being deemed competent to enter a plea. At his sentencing, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Cari Harrison recommended that Corrections provide Munster with substance-abuse and mental-health treatment. Corrections officials declined to say whether Munster received treatment. He killed himself five months into a five-year prison sentence.

Many states, from California to Mississippi, no longer place mentally ill inmates in solitary because of what the clinical data shows about its impact and often because they stopped the practice to settle lawsuits.
In a suit filed in federal court March 6, a coalition of human-rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, accuses Arizona's Department of Corrections of "gratuitous cruelty" in its use of solitary confinement. The suit seeks to restrict the use of solitary, particularly for minors and the mentally ill.

 

Effects of solitary

 

Those who have been held in isolation say it's hard for those who haven't to understand its impact.

Sarah Shourd, who spent 14 months in isolation in Iran's notorious Evin prison after being seized at the Iraqi Kurdish border with two other American hikers in 2009, said in recent interviews that in her small cell she suffered from insomnia and panic attacks and would lose control, screaming and beating the walls, unaware of what she was doing. Two years later, she still struggles with the psychological aftermath, finding crowds or loud noises unbearable. She has become an adamant foe of the use of solitary confinement, which she calls degrading and inhumane.

"When I got out I was shocked to find that the U.S. had more people in solitary confinement than any other country," she told writer James Ridgeway. "And in this country it is used routinely as an administrative practice, not as a very last resort, which is how it should be used."

Two-thirds of Arizona prisoners in solitary are held at Eyman state prison, in Florence. Former inmate Ruben Bermudez has done two stints in solitary there -- the first when he was 16. He recalls vividly his time in a windowless cell with nothing except a box of letters from his family.

"There was s--t splattered all over my cell and it never got cleaned up," he said. "You don't ever see the outside. You don't see anything, night after night and day after day. ... I was hiding under my bed, crying, flipped out, having nightmares. You just stare at things. I would pace back and forth, back and forth. ... I was having panic attacks. You have nothing. You get one book a month. You go nuts just staring at the walls."

In many cases, disciplinary charges will land an inmate in solitary. Most often, such charges are for refusing an order to share a cell with a particular inmate, says prisoner-rights advocate Margaret Plews, who has spent years tracking Arizona inmate deaths. She said inmates who fear for their lives in the general inmate population will often deliberately rack up disciplinary charges.

That fear can stem from gang affiliations, or the lack of an affiliation and the protection it can provide. When an inmate asks for "protective segregation," the standard procedure is to put that person in a solitary detention unit while the request is considered.

That's where Munster was when he killed himself. It's also where inmates Rodriguez-Bojorquez and Cunningham were when they committed suicide within days of each other in September 2010 at the Florence state prison.

According to another inmate, Rodriguez-Bojorquez had recently been denied protective segregation when he killed himself. Cunningham was seeking protective segregation after being assaulted and raped, according to his mother.

Corrections officials didn't respond by deadline to queries about the case.

Inmates who attempt to harm themselves, or even talk about it, are placed in isolation in watch cells where they are supposed to be checked on at least every 30 minutes, in some cases every 10 minutes, or even kept under continuous observation.

ToersBijns, the retired deputy warden, said that many officers "go above and beyond in dealing with very challenging conditions, and save lives; but you also have officers who go off and spend time in the office when they're supposed to be on suicide watch."

Some inmates need to be protected from themselves; some need to be protected from others. Jesse Cabonias, 49, hanged himself last July in a porter's closet at the Lewis state prison. Due to a miscount by officers, no one noticed him missing for seven hours. Other inmates told a Corrections investigator that Cabonias had been repeatedly raped by a cellmate. The autopsy showed methamphetamine in his system at the time he died. He had previously requested and been denied protective segregation.

Forrest Day, 19, was serving a 3.5-year sentence for child abuse, after her infant son drowned when she left him in a tub unattended when she was 16.

She used her shoelaces to hang herself at Perryville state prison on Jan. 27. Her father, James Day, reported to the Maricopa County medical examiner that shortly before she died, Forrest Day told him officers were forcing her to have sex with them. The medical examiner's spokesman, Mike Molzhon, said the examiner took genital swabs and turned them over to a Corrections Department investigator for testing but the department did not test the swabs.

Corrections spokesman Bill Lamoreaux said, "Nothing in the investigation or autopsy showed that a sexual assault occurred."

He declined to say whether investigators contacted James Day or interviewed other inmates or officers about the allegations. James Day couldn't be reached for comment.

More units planned

 

Arizona has long been more aggressive than most states in its use of solitary confinement.

In 1987, Arizona built the first prison designed from scratch for permanent lockdown, one that would become the prototype for "supermax" solitary-confinement prisons around the country: the SMU 1 ("special management unit") at Eyman state prison. It has no windows, no recreation yard, no common rooms. The perforated steel fronts and doors of the cells allow prisoners to be handcuffed while locked in their cells; each small "pod" of cells is monitored centrally, with fewer correctional officers than older prisons. Inmates exercise alone in a windowless concrete pen.

Haver, Nunn and Colamer, the Phoenix architectural firm that designed the prison, trumpeted it in the industry magazine Corrections Today as a living example "of how tomorrow's maximum-security prisons will be designed." The firm won contracts to build California's similar Pelican Bay prison and many others. A supermax building boom followed. By 1999, similar prisons sprang up in 30 states; by 2005, in 40 states. Arizona soon expanded SMU 1 and built a second SMU, now called the Browning Unit, at Eyman.

Corrections Director Charles Ryan plans more isolation units: Next year's state budget includes $20 million to begin constructing another 500-bed maximum-security unit, at Lewis state prison. It's expected to cost $50 million to complete.

Despite the ACLU lawsuit in March, and an April report by Amnesty International charging that Arizona's use of solitary violates international human-rights treaties, Corrections officials have rejected any calls to change how they classify and assign inmates.

Last fall, the Department of Corrections said it gave six hours of training in how to recognize and prevent suicides to 8,806 staff members. The training advised staff to take all suicide threats seriously and not to "dare the inmate to try it." Staff were also given guidance on what to do in instances of hanging or cutting, the most common methods inmates use to harm themselves.

The training followed a lawsuit filed by the family of inmate Tony Lester, a mentally ill inmate housed in a two-man cell at the Tucson state prison who bled to death in July 2010 while correctional officers stood outside his cell for more than 23 minutes. Orlando Pope, one of those officers, said he'd never been trained in how to apply pressure to a wound.

The Lester family is seeking $3 million.

On May 17, the U.S. Department of Justice announced new national standards that call for restricting the use of solitary- and maximum-custody units for inmates who ask for protective custody. Ryan said his department will respond to those standards within the required 14 months.

Ryan also says "boots on the ground" help prevent suicides and said Corrections will add 103 correctional-officer positions next fiscal year, on top of 306 positions restored this year and last after deep cuts in the mid-2000s. He sees evidence of success in the decline in successful suicides so far this fiscal year -- to six, from 13 last year.

The actual number of suicides both years is almost certainly higher. The state's figures don't include 10 deaths that the department lists as still under investigation, or eight other deaths in which inmates died at their own hands but that Corrections has deemed "accidental."

Meanwhile, the number of self-harm and suicide attempts continues to rise, from 449 last fiscal year to 470 in the first 11 months of this fiscal year.

Reach the reporter at bob.ortega@arizonarepublic.com.

Native America and AZ State Prisons: Remembering young warriors..

American Indians make up 4.6% of Arizona's residents, according to 2010 census figures. 5.0% of Arizona's prison population is Native American. The highest concentrations of them are at Perryville women's prison in Goodyear (7.6% of women are native American). There the highest concentration of indigenous women is being kept in the Lumley maximum security Special Management Unit - they constitute 14.3% of prisoners under lock down in that unit. 

Indigenous men are most heavily concentrated in the supermax complex, ASPC-Eyman, in Florence (6.4% of that population is Native American). In SMUI, where many of the seriously mentally ill are confined and neglected, often in solitary cells, they make up 9.7% of those locked down. 

One has to wonder if we aren't just trying to break the resistant and deviant ones, which is part of the genocidal pattern.

The author of the article below is the uncle of Alfonso Farmer, who recently committed suicide in prison as well. Our condolences to him and all of Alfonso's loved ones...

-------------from Indian Country Today----------

A Needless Death: The Tony Lester Story

By Oliver J. Semans

As a Lakota, I was taught to respect life and death. Living on the reservation, death is all too common. From young to old, we have all felt the pain of losing loved ones before their time. Death on our reservations in one way or another touches each and every one of us, even if we live elsewhere. The death of a young Indian man also tells me, we mustn’t forget Tribal members who are out of sight out of mind in shockingly high proportions in the criminal justice system and that their deaths touches us, too.

When I was contacted in reference to a young Indian man, Antony “Tony” Lester, 26 years of age, who lost his life by suicide while in prison in Arizona, it brought back memories of my 23-year-old nephew, Alfonzo Lee Farmer, who also lost his life by suicide in an Arizona prison and whose funeral I attended just last month.

According to the 2010 Census, there are 5.2 million Native American Indians, and we make up 0.9 percent of the total population. In many states, we are incarcerated in great disproportion to our population numbers. In my state, South Dakota, we make up we are 8.8 percent of the population and yet we make up 23 percent and 35 percent respectively of all inmates and 50% of female prisoners are Native American Indians. In Wyoming, we are 2.4 percent of the population and we make up 7 percent of prisoners. In Montana, we are 6.3 percent of the population and we are 18.8 percent of men and 29.6 percent of women in prison. According to the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Native children make up 50 percent of youngsters in the federal prison system.

Let’s place these percentages in prospective and make one of these numbers a real person. Antony “Tony” Lester was an only child. His father was an enrolled member of the Salt River/Pima Reservation who did not have contact with him and his mother. His mother Eleanor is a Sioux/Assiniboine from Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. Tony’s mother devoted her life to Tony, raising him as a single mom and always providing the best. He graduated from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School in Scottsdale, Arizona, and then later attended Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix.

Tony was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was in high school, struggled with his condition, and was a self-harming as a teenager. He told his family that the voices were “getting worse.” Tony was loved and cared for by his family throughout his illness and it was this illness that gave the state of Arizona a reason to send him to prison.

Tony Lester never had any prior convictions and yet he never stood a chance. In 2010, he was sentenced to 12 years in state prison on assault charges stemming from a suicide attempt during a psychotic episode the previous year. Two of his very close friends who tried to stop him from cutting his throat got hurt while grabbing the knife.

Tony was mentally ill and the state of Arizona knew this. Instead of being admitted to a psychiatric hospital, Tony was put in jail. Nine months of medication restored him to sufficient competency to be deemed fit for trial. He was found guilty by a jury. During this time, it was discovered that Tony was struggling with seven voices telling him to kill himself or he would not go to heaven and that his family would be harmed. Worse yet, says his family, the voices were not just talking to him but to each other, and he felt he could no longer control them.

The judge and court-appointed psychiatrist advised that Tony should be housed in a facility where he would receive the necessary mental health treatment. Yet this was ignored, and he was sent to the Arizona State Prison in Tucson.

Tony was placed with the general prison population; he went off his medication and was sent to a unit for behavioral problems. He was on and off suicide watch. The family recalls vividly that at 11:45 pm on July 11, 2010, they received a phone call informing them that Tony had been taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. A few hours later, at 3:15 am, they received a call saying Tony had died from injuries he had sustained. They learned he had cut his wrists, jugular vein and groin with a razor he was mistakenly provided in a prisoner hygiene pack.

The Lester family battled the state of Arizona for almost two years to gain access to footage filmed by one of the guards, Umberto Hernandez, on the day Tony died. The video shows that the guards did not at any time provide medical assistance. The video is very graphic and watching it, my prayers go out to Tony’s family. A year-long inquiry by Wendy Halloran, investigative reporter with KPNX (Channel 12 Watchdog News), in Phoenix, uncovered much shocking information surrounding the passing of this young man. Click here for the story.

Tony’s aunt, Patti Jones, along with his family throughout Indian country, are now his voice. His family is asking for your help in exposing the inhumanities Tony suffered. They ask you to view Ms. Halloran’s investigative report and post comments to connect@ad.gannett.com and to Brian Williams at nightly@nbc.com. You may also contact Ms. Jones at tonysvoice26@gmail.com.

This story is far from over, looking at the statistics listed above many more Native prisoners must have met this fate as well. The statistics show extreme disproportionality from the beginning of the contact with the justice system, more apprehensions, more arrests, more adjudication’s, more convictions, harsher sentencing, deficiencies in legal advice. Getting involved in helping the Lester family is the first step in learning what we need to do in order to help all of our people.

I leave you with a comment placed on msn.com by a person who self-identified anonymously as one of the jurors: “We could see that he was ill, and we thought that he would get probation and get the help he needed.”

Oliver J. Semans is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.

More than just a number: Watching Tony Die, Part 3.

Most folks who have been reading here any amount of time know about the highly preventable suicide of young Tony Lester, whose tragic story has been revealed in several parts since he died in July 2010 at ASPC-Tucson of self-inflicted wounds to his neck. For those needing to catch up, I've compiled links below to the previous posts I've made about Tony. 

Deaths in Custody: Anthony Clayton Lester (9/15/10).

 

The Highly Preventable Suicide of Tony Lester (1/8/11).

 

Waiting in the Silence: Remembering Tony Lester (6/16/11).

 

Watching Tony die: The Halloran Investigation and feedback (11/11/11).

 

 (the above post has the links to both of Wendy's first two pieces on Tony)

 

The conviction of Tony Lester: A juror's regrets (1/2/12).

 

Below is the third part of the CH12 / KPNX investigative series: "Watching Tony Die". Wendy Halloran has done an outstanding job challenging the Department of Corrections' treatment of prisoners with serious mental illness, and even dug deeper to look at the sentencing reforms needed to spare people like him inappropriate terms of incarceration...unfortunately, our legislature has pretty much obliterated chances for that again this year, however.

Those folks with loved ones in prison need to watch this clip and please email connect@ad.gannett.com to register your feedback. Especially with the current conditions in the state prisons, it's important for the media to know that these lives matter.

ALSO REMEMBER 
the FOLLOWING UPCOMING EVENTS:

Stop Prisoner Abuse Demonstration: 

Friday, March 9 at 10am 

AZ State Capitol/Wes Bolin Plaza.

Community Forum on Medical Neglect in AZ State Prisons 

Thursday, March 22, 6:30pm

Maryvale Community Center

Dear Governor Brewer: Time to FIRE Chuck Ryan.

Many folks wonder what I do with the art I create, and why I bother chalking sidewalks when they just get washed off once I leave. The chalkings are multi-functional: they leave a message for the person or entity whose walk I'm chalking, and when I shoot them they deliver my message all over the world on Facebook and my blogs. I have a really cheap, crummy camera, so I learned to make the most of it by manipulating the colors to make these postcards with. I send them to decision-makers, allies, prisoners, media, etc. to raise awareness and show solidarity and struggle with those suffering the most. Feel free to download any of my art and do the same. I do this all with nothing more complex than the Windows image editing program that came with Vista.

We do still have a crisis in the prisons, by the way. The ACLU is about to sue over medical neglect, but the culture of contempt for prisoners and the pervasive despair and violence behind bars is unchecked. It's a poison that trickles from the top down. By far, those dying are the most vulnerable among us - not the vicious punks or molesters people think are the ones who get it in prison, and therefore don't care about. Those committed to protecting the rights of the mentally ill and developmentally disabled in the community should especially care about what's happening in the state prisons, because that's where so many are still heading.

This is what I did with the mural Kini Seawright and I did yesterday at the Herberger - her son was murdered for loving a Mexican. Brewer needs to be held accountable, too: All these deaths after all, are not only Chuck Ryan's - they're hers - and the longer she leaves him in charge the more culpable she is for the next suicide or homicide of someone's child, mother, brother, or friend in prison.

Anyone who is similarly moved to communicate with the Governor may want to do so in a public forum, so you can't be as easily ignored. 

The address for the Arizona Republic is: 

 Letters to the Editor

The Arizona Republic

P.O. Box 1950

Phoenix, AZ 85001

Letters may also be faxed to (602) 444-8933.Or contact them via the on-line form.