The Ghosts of Doug Ducey: JANUARY 2015 State Prison Deaths

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 

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...

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Statement from Corrections Director Charles Ryan 

regarding inmate suicides

“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.

Ortega: Why so many prisoners dead?

 

to CHUCK RYAN: 

"Please stop killing your prisoners"

Arizona Department of Corrections: 

Central Office, Phoenix

(November 22, 2011)

I disagree with Carl on this one - I think omitting witnesses, etc from suspicious death reports - that is, them "selectively" - does constitute falsification of a public record, which is a class 6 felony. I've read enough of the ADC's death records, and talked to enough family members and corrections officers, to be convinced that such damage control is itself criminal activity, and should be treated as such.

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

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DOC fails to list cause of death in 28 cases.

Bob Ortega
AZ Republic
June 2, 2012

The Arizona Department of Corrections listed no cause of death for 28 inmates who died during the past two years, stating only that the deaths were under investigation. No further information has been released.

In response to public-information requests submitted by The Arizona Republic seeking information about 36 inmate deaths, Corrections provided records for 10 cases. Those records often lack details such as how much time passed before medical responders were summoned and when they arrived to aid a prisoner.

Interviews with families, inmates and prison staff and records from county medical examiners and other sources yielded information about all but eight of the 36 inmate deaths. But Corrections officials have not released any information on those eight deaths, which include four that have been "under investigation" for more than 18 months.

In Arizona, correctional-death investigations are handled internally rather than by a police agency, as occurs in some states. The shift supervisor writes a draft report, which must be approved by administrators in the central office before it's published. The department's Office of the Inspector General assigns an investigator.

"The cleanup starts the moment the incident is reported: eliminating flag words, eliminating individuals who may be relevant to the situation, cut back the witness list," says Carl ToersBijns, a retired deputy warden who served at Eyman state prison. He emphasized that he doesn't believe reports are falsified but are written selectively.

"By the time it's finalized, the incident report is so clean and sterile you won't know what happened because it's already been filtered. The direction is given ... was it deliberate, accidental, suicide, homicide? They try to fix and create a summary for that report that they can defend," he says. "There's a couple of reports where the investigator had doubts and it was overwritten. A lot of drug overdoses are suicides; a lot of 'natural deaths' are people who have been suffering medical conditions but finally just expired. It's not reflected on those reports and never will be reflected in the news reports. Only the ones who were there know what happened."

Corrections officials say their reports are accurate.

The prisons of Chuck Ryan: Arizona's other death row.

AZ Crime Victims Memorial: Wes Bolin Plaza, AZ State Capitol

March 9, 2012

 

Mother of Dana Seawright, homicide victim, and aunt of Tony Lester, suicide victim, 

protesting the continuing abuse and neglect and violence 
perpetrated on prisoners of the state of Arizona. 

Both men were in the care of the AZ Department of Corrections when they died...

The intro to the following series from Bob Ortega and the AZ Republic on Chuck Ryan's growing body count. Fantastic work by all involved in the research, editing , and of course the writing of these pieces - but especially Bob Ortega.  

Here's the moving slideshow of prisoners put together by the AZ Republic for this piece... 

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

 Arizona prison system sees high number of deaths.
Bob Ortega
Arizona Republic
June 2, 2012

Arizona's prison system has two death rows.

One is made up of the 126 inmates officially sentenced to death -- 123 men at the Eyman state prison in Florence and three women at Perryville. Seven convicted killers from that group have been executed over the last two years.

The other death row, the unofficial one, reaches into every prison in Arizona's sprawling correctional system. No judge or jury condemned anyone in this group to death. They die as victims of prison violence, neglect and mistreatment.

Over the past two years, this death row has claimed the lives of at least 37 inmates, more than five times the number executed from the official death row. Among them are mentally ill prisoners locked in solitary confinement who committed suicide, inmates who overdosed on drugs smuggled into prison, those with untreated medical conditions and inmates murdered by other inmates.

Unlike state executions, these deaths rarely draw much notice. Each receives a terse announcement by the Department of Corrections and then is largely forgotten.

But correctional officers and other staff who work with inmates say many of these deaths are needless and preventable.

Arizona will spend $1.1 billion this year to lock up its 40,000 prisoners.

But there is another cost, one measured not in dollars but in human lives.

Over four days, an Arizona Republic investigation will reveal a prison system that houses inmates under brutal conditions that can foster self-harm, allows deadly drugs to flow in from the outside, leaves inmates to die from treatable medical conditions and fails to protect inmates from prison predators.

Today, The Republic focuses on suicides in the prison system, where there have been at least 19 in the past two years. Arizona's official prison-suicide rate during that period was 60 percent higher than the national average. But suicides in prison are likely underreported, according to critics.

More than half of the suicides involved inmates in solitary confinement, including some with serious mental illnesses.