Jan Brewer to AG Holder on PREA: Whitewash of prison rape.

Below is Governor Jan Brewer's letter to the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, explaining why she doesn't think Arizona should comply with the Federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). I posted my own letter to Holder to the DAILY KOS today...

ASPC-Eyman Suicide in Custody: Mark Moore, 57.

Sad to report there's been another suicide in the AZ DOC's supermax prison, ASPC-Eyman; that prison is a death trap for people prone to self-destruction. This one isn't the usual prisoner suicide, though - which has been male, young and facing life, on death row, or just about to be free, for the most part these past 5 years. This fellow had been at the AZ DOC since 1986, had a decent job, was only medium custody (which meant he had more privileges and programming opportunities then most guys I hear from have), and he apparently hadn't had any disciplinary write-ups in over a year. Yeah, he was in for life, but he'd made some kind of life in there and adapted to it...look at his work record.

Latest Supermax suicide victim, 

Mark Moore, 57

The only clue to something changing I can see on his AIMS, which is public info on the DOC website, is that he had just been re-classed a week ago, likely to a lower  custody level. Based on letters I've gotten from other prisoners who were old-timers being re-classed, its possible he was told he'd be moved to another General Population yard, despite his apprehensions about being there given his history as a sex offender. But, given his history as a sex offender, I doubt the DOC would put him back in GP. I think they would be prohibited from it, in fact....except that that's not what he was doing time for, this time around. So they may well have told him he was not getting protective custody and would have to make it in GP. That probably kills more guys than any other single thing at the AZ DOC.

Given the possibility that he was already in Protective Custody and remaining there, though,  I wondered what else might have been going on to cause him to take his life. He didn't appear to be severely mentally ill, based on his steady employment history as a barber (they don't like giving the SMI guys scissors). Maybe he got a terminal diagnosis he couldn't deal with, or was sexually assaulted and the DOC didn't appropriately counsel him (all too often the case, the victim is put in the hole while the perpetrator remains free on the yard. The victim is then repeatedly humiliated by officers, especially those victims who are known to be gay, and moved from GP yard to GP Yard while begging to be placed in protective custody....). Both Jesse Cabonias and Duron Cunningham committed suicide in the wake of no or poor institutional response to their sexual victimization - those are just the two I know about, anyway.

The standard psychiatric evaluations offered to Eyman prisoners by Corizon leave a lot to be desired, as you can see here. Basically, the medium security folks are rounded up, chained to each other, and transported to a maximum security yard where they are then herded into a room together to have their telephonic appointment with the shrink. Reports from prisoners are that these meetings have been held while they were  still chained to other prisoners - the DOC flatly denies this. In any case, the prisoners only get a few minutes of doctor time and the experience they have to endure for the sake of it has discouraged many from seeking psychiatric care or continuing with treatment.

In order to maximize profits - which is what the legislature wanted DOC to hire them to do, to make a profit at taxpayer and prisoner expense -  Corizon has slashed staff time available to ill prisoners, and discontinued many psychiatric medications switching prisoners who were functioning well on one drug to older, less effective meds with more severe side effect profiles, which many prisoners understandably no longer wish to take. These are the drugs that pharmaceutical companies typically sell extremely cheap in developing countries for institutionalized people, because hardly anyone in the US uses them anymore due to the side effect profiles - some - even at low doses, can cause high rates of Tardive Dyskinesia, a serious neurological syndrome. Here, in fact, is another letter of concern from Donna Hamm to the DOC Director, Chuck Ryan, about psychiatric and health care at Eyman under Corizon.

Similarly, to save money, Corizon discontinued a good many prisoners, if not all, from their pain management medications when they took over the medical care contract. Even many of those who managed to get their doctor to start them on another medication found they were ineffective for the diabetic neuropathy, or back pain, or bone cancer they were dealing with, and felt compelled to resort to heroin for pain management instead - far easier to get on a prison yard these days than a single tablet of Tylenol 3. Some, facing unbearable pain, day in and day out, with no compassion or relief from medical providers who would just as soon let them die in agony, might even choose to end their lives themselves, the one thing they have ultimate control over when all else is controlled by the state.

Not all DOC medical staff are heartless or gutless, though - at least Teresa Short walked away and came forward about the ethical dilemmas she experienced at Corizon over the past year, working in the intensive care unit at Tucson prison. And some legislators wonder why there's a class action suit complaining about the "free" medical care prisoners are so lucky to get - they think the ACLU has nothing better to do. The legislature's willingness to turn a blind eye is a large part of the problem at the AZ DOC

Anyway, my condolences go out to anyone who cared about this man - as well as to the survivors of his murder victim, for whom his suicide will bring up a lot of feelings, I would imagine. If anyone has any hard info about how and why he killed himself, I'm Peggy Plews - contact me at 480-580-6807 / arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com or PO box 20494 PHX 85036.

AL JAZEERA's America Tonight: Another whistle blown on Corizon.

Blessings to former Corizon employee and whistleblower Teresa Short. What she did here took both courage and compassion. How sad that it has become an extraordinary thing these days to simply do the right thing and tell the truth.


Thanks to Abby Leonard and Adam May at Al Jazeera America Tonight for this coverage last week, too. They've been super.


Families, if you're advocating for an imprisoned loved one needing medical or mental health care, check out these posts below, and feel free to contact me: peggy plews 480-580-6807 / arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com.

Corizon and the AZ DOC: Prisoners & Families, Know Your Rights. http://www.arizonaprisonwatch.org/2013/03/corizon-and-az-doc-prisoners-families.html

 Corizon's deliberate indifference: fighting back.

 http://www.arizonaprisonwatch.org/2013/05/corizons-deliberate-indifference.html

A word of advice - if you need help and cant hire an attorney, you'll need to drag your AZ state legislators into it to get anywhere - start filling them in  now, and make sure the DOC knows that you're cc'ing them on everything you have to write to Director Ryan in order to get your loved one taken care of. They can be found here: http://www.azleg.gov/alisStaticPages/HowToContactMember.asp

Please make sure your loved one in prison is doing the grievance process properly so they can sue these bastards if they still don't treat them right. Keep an eye on the DOC policy page, too, so you can see when things change and send copies inside.

 ---------------------------------

Whistleblower: Arizona inmates are dying from inadequate health care

An “America Tonight” investigation found dozens of cases of neglect in Arizona'€™s privatized prison health care system

 Watch parts one and two of Adam May's report.

May 28, 2014 3:45PM ET

 

by Abigail Leonard  & Adam May @adammaytv

 

SAFFORD, Ariz. — Regan Clarine found out she was pregnant just two days before she was sentenced to two and a half years behind bars for possessing a narcotic for sale. Giving birth to her baby daughter while she was incarcerated at the state prison complex near (Phoenix) was an experience she says nearly killed them both.

Clarine says her first indication things were not right with her health care was when she asked prison officials for an ultrasound. She was worried she wasn't gaining enough weight, but they never gave her one. Instead, Clarine said that after about nine months, prison doctors sent her to the hospital to induce labor, but when the baby still didn’t come, they performed a cesarean section against her wishes.

When Clarine went back to her cell, her C-section wound re-opened.

“It was big enough for me to put my fist in there,” she said. “It was the worst pain I’d ever been through in my life.”

Clarine said she alerted guards, but they refused to let her see a doctor, leaving her on the prison yard with a gaping wound for two weeks. When she finally saw medical staff, she said they told her that she was lucky to be alive. They treated her with a wound vacuum. Then, she said, they employed an antiquated medical treatment.

“They decided to use sugar … like McDonald’s sugar,” she said. “They would open it and pour it inside [the wound] and put gauze over and tape it up. And I had to do that for like three weeks.”

Clarine’s story is one of dozens. Like many other states, Arizona privatized its prison health care system two years ago. In a six-month investigation, “America Tonight” found disturbing cases of inadequate treatment, and evidence that Wexford Health Sources, the first private company Arizona contracted to provide prison health care, was aware that it was violating prisoners’ constitutional rights.

Arizona’s system is currently run by Corizon Health, the largest private prison health care provider in the country. Now, for the first time ever, one of its former employees is blowing the whistle about its failures.

Going unfed

Teresa Short was a patient care technician for Corizon, but lost her job in late March for refusing to go to work while suffering from a case of scabies she caught from a prisoner. Short said she thought it would be unethical to treat patients while she was still contagious. She had already infected a family member, she said, and feared her son could contract it and bring it to his high school. According to Short, Corizon and Arizona prison officials have been trying to cover up the outbreak, which now includes the original prisoner and seven staff members. (Read Corizon's response.)

But the most persistent problem at Corizon, Short said, was staffing.

“We have a lot of dementia patients that take time in feeding,” she said, “and because of the short staff we'd have to stand there for hours to try to feed them and it was just not permitted.”

Sometimes, those patients would go unfed, she said. Others who were incontinent would sit for hours in their own feces, she said. And still others died.

Short described one dementia patient who had a vascular catheter in his arm for dialysis treatments. He didn’t understand what it was and kept playing with it, she said, so she repeatedly told senior staff he needed additional supervision. Instead, they sent him back to his cell, alone. At 5 a.m., she went in to check on him.

Former Corizon patient care technician Teresa Short said some Arizona prisoners have died because there weren't enough medical staff on duty.

 

“[I] could smell blood before I even went into the room,” she said. “And when I turned on his light, it looked like somebody had been murdered. There was blood all over the room. I screamed for help.”

Short said the man had unplugged the catheter and quickly bled out. If Corizon had employed more staff to monitor patients, she said, he might still be alive.

There are some numbers to back up Short’s claims. Since the state privatized its prison health care, medical spending in prisons dropped by $30 million and staffing levels plummeted, according to an October report from the American Friends Services Committee, a Quaker social justice organization. It also found a sharp spike in the number of inmate deaths. In the first eight months of 2013, 50 people died in Arizona Department of Corrections custody, compared with 37 deaths in the previous two years combined.

According to a 2012 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the health care in Arizona’s prisons now amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, with prisoners at serious risk of "pain, amputation, disfigurement and death.” The suit cites examples of Arizona health officials telling prisoners to pray to be cured and drink energy shakes to alleviate cancer symptoms.

“People are often sent to prison for two-year, three-year sentences that have turned into death sentences because of the absence of the basic minimal care,” said Dan Pochoda, legal director for the ACLU in Arizona. He said in his 40-year career, he’s never seen a worse prison health care system.

In an emailed statement, Corizon spokeswoman Susan Morgenstern said that the company could not discuss individual cases because of privacy laws, but that “the vast majority of our current staff levels exceed contract requirements,” and that their care follows the guidelines of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the American Correctional Association.

“Our goal is always to provide quality care while being good stewards and making the best use of public funds,” she wrote.

“As for lawsuits, we treat hundreds of thousands of patients in millions of healthcare encounters each year,” she added. “… The majority of lawsuits are brought by inmates without an attorney representing them and are dismissed or resolved prior to trial.” (Read the company’s full statement.)

'He had plans'

After his cancer, inmate Tony Brown's pain medication was switched from morphine to less-powerful Lortab.

America Tonight

Tony Brown is another inmate who died since Arizona privatized its prison health care. He was serving a 10-year sentence for aggravated assault and was due to be released last September.

“They were supposed to come down for Thanksgiving this year,” his daughter Jenna Jumper said. “He never got to meet my husband and he wasn't there when I got married, so they were going to come visit.”

Brown was in remission from esophageal cancer, according to his medical records, and had been prescribed morphine for the pain. But in October 2012, the prison ran out of the drug. Medical staff switched him to Lortab, a weaker painkiller.

In a video taken by prison guards and obtained by “America Tonight,” Brown is seen just after he was put on the new medication, writhing in pain while handcuffed to a gurney. His medical records show that guards told nurses his condition was worsening and that he "needed to be checked out." But there is no record of medical staff visiting his cell.

In another video taken two days later, a prison chaplain checks on Brown at his wife’s request.

“Inmate Brown, I spoke with your wife earlier today,” the chaplain is heard saying. “Can you communicate with me please? I’d like to speak with your wife later on. Is there something I can tell her?”

Brown, face down on a bunk, barely moves and doesn’t respond. A guard can be heard saying, “Is it me or does this just not feel right to anybody else?”

The guards started CPR and nurses came to assist, but 40 minutes passed before they realized no one had called an ambulance.

He died in a hospital the next day. Two days later, his widow Jami Brown said she finally received a call back from Wexford, the private prison health care company in charge at the time.

“My biggest thing is that if people would stop to realize that he did have family,” his daughter said, “and that he did have a child and he did have a wife and he had plans.”

The official cause of death was listed as complications from cancer. But Brown's family is suing Wexford, claiming he died from lack of adequate medical care.

In a statement, Wexford attorney Ed Hochuli said he couldn’t discuss details of the case because of the lawsuit and health care privacy laws, but wrote: "Based on the limited information we have at this time, though, I am very confident Wexford Health and its employees acted appropriately, and further investigation of this claim will demonstrate and prove the lack of any wrongdoing or negligence by Wexford Health.”

But there are signs that Wexford was aware of problems.

“America Tonight” obtained a copy of a PowerPoint presentation written by top Wexford executives for a meeting with the Arizona governor's office in November 2012 – four months after the company started providing care in the state. It warned that the care it and the Department of Corrections were providing was "not compliant with … requirements" and that "the current class action lawsuits are accurate." It recommended an overall operational cleanup, staffing reassessment and the appointment of a governor’s office liaison.

The PowerPoint presentation also says that the department's "transparency" policy with the media could "encourage negative press."

'A grain of sugar'

State Rep. John Kavanagh said Clarine’s story about being treated with sugar didn’t seem like a “true allegation,” adding that it “sounds ridiculous.”

 

 

Prison officials deny any problems with privatized care. Richard Pratt, the interim director of the health services division of Arizona’s Department of Corrections, told “America Tonight” that staffing levels since privatization were “basically the same.”

“Corizon staffing levels have been coming up on a monthly basis to the point even last month the hours that they were working with their existing staff exceeded the contract requirements,” he said.

He also denied there was a scabies outbreak, as Teresa Short had charged.

But Pratt emphasized that privatizing health care wasn’t a decision made by the Department of Corrections.
“It was legislated and mandated and it was the law,” he said. “So we were forced to do this.”

Legislators who supported the privatization promised that it would save taxpayers money, while maintaining adequate levels of care for inmates. The majority of states have privatized prison health care, rewarding private companies for keeping costs down.

“I mean, people die in prisons,” said state Rep. John Kavanagh, who wrote the legislation that privatized the state’s prison health care. “I receive a lot of handwritten notes from prisoners. I receive emails from prison families with all sorts of allegations of crazy behavior. And then, you call the prison people up and they usually have a reasonable explanation for it.”

Kavanagh said Clarine’s story about being treated with sugar didn’t seem like a “true allegation,” adding that it “sounds ridiculous.”

“You know prisoners have 24/7 to think up allegations and write letters,” he said. “I'm not saying that some of them can't have a basis in fact. But you got to take them with a grain of salt or in the case of the hospital, with maybe a grain of sugar.”

Kavanagh was also dismissive of the ACLU lawsuit. “I think most people who get into [class-action lawsuits] wind up with nothing and the lawyers walk away in limousines with their trunks full of cash,” he said.

No bid, nothing

Richard Pratt, interim health services director for Arizona’s Department of Corrections, denies that there’s a scabies outbreak in prison and says that Corizon’s staffing levels have exceeded the requirements of the contract.

 

 

Before Tony Brown’s death, Wexford was already coming under fire after a contract nurse exposed more than 100 inmates to hepatitis C by using dirty needles to deliver medication, according to the Department of Corrections. Four months later, Arizona severed ties with Wexford and awarded the three-year, $369 million contract to Corizon, which has similar contracts in 28 states, according to its website. But it has faced problems in many of them; in the last five years, Corizon has been sued for malpractice 660 times.

Arizona Democratic House Minority Leader Chad Campbell said the Legislature didn't properly vet Corizon before signing the contract.

“No bid. Nothing,” he said. “It was deemed an emergency situation by Department of Corrections so they didn't have to go through the normal process.”

Campbell also noted that Corizon had just hired the former head of the Department of Corrections, who was the mentor of the current head of the department.

That’s not the only tie that members of the state government have to private prisons. Charles Coughlin, the former campaign strategist for Gov. Jan Brewer, runs a lobbying firm called HighGround Public Affairs Consultants, which represented one of the country’s largest private prison companies. HighGround donated $5,000 to Jan PAC, Brewer's super PAC.

Then in late March, Kavanagh allocated $900,000 in state funding to the private prison company GEO Group Inc., even though the Department of Corrections said it wasn’t needed, according to the Arizona Republic.

“They're profiting on taxpayer dollars and to me, if I'm going to hand out money to a private entity, I want to make sure it's being spent wisely,” said Campbell, who is now calling for an investigation.

The governor's office declined a request from “America Tonight” for an interview and referred us back to Kavanagh, who said the allegations that Brewer accepted bids because of personal relationships were “baseless.”

“I think they're propaganda,” he said. “I mean, people say to me I've gotten campaign contributions from private-prison people. Well, yeah. I got from a lobbyist who represents them but that lobbyist also represents 40 other clients in different industries. It's smoke and mirrors. It's a façade.”

In the meantime, allegations of wrongdoing continue to mount. According to the American Friends Service Committee report, an inmate at the Whetstone Unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex tested positive for tuberculosis in August. But Corizon did not test other prisoners, even those who were doing community service outside the complex.

A healthy baby

Clarine walks out of prison, escorted by her father

 

 

Earlier this month, Regan Clarine completed her sentence. “America Tonight” met her as she was released into the waiting arms of her father, Paul.

“It’s one of the happiest days of our life,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll never have to do this again.”

They drove to a nearby hotel to reunite with the rest of the family, including her 11-month-old daughter, Rylan.

They’d met a handful of times on brief prison visits, but Rylan didn’t recognize her mother. Still, Clarine was happy to see her so healthy.

She responded to Kavanagh’s allegation that she was probably making up her story with a laugh, saying, “That’s crazy. I don’t think I could even come up with something like that … Sugar?”

To add insult to injury, her mother, Lori, said the prison has billed her $2,000 for Rylan’s birth. She is disputing the charges but fears it could hurt her credit if she doesn’t pay them. She says privatized prison health care simply isn’t working.

“You know, she got her just punishment,” Lori said. “But, oh my goodness, they're still human beings. Take care of them.”

CORIZON at ASPC-Perryville: Deliberate indifference to our elders.

I received the following letter from a woman at ASPC-Perryville who is deeply concerned for a friend’s welfare, and hopes that publishing her story will help improve the quality of care she gets from Corizon staff and the AZ DOC. She’s one of few women I’m in touch with who really knows how to fight back through the grievance process and civil rights suits. Thank you, Laura Medley. You rock!

 prisoner Dominique Keys

ASPC-Perryville

“In 2006, Dominique Keys developed osteomyleitis. This is an infection of bone marrow and/or bone structures usually caused by a bacteria. For months she had a fever up to 104 degrees, and AZ Department of Corrections (DOC) medical told her nothing was wrong with her.


Without her knowledge, this infection ate through the spinal vertebrae causing two cervical fractures. For months medical left Dominique in her cell partially paralyzed in her own urine and feces telling staff that there was nothing wrong with her.


By January 2007, (medical) sent Dominique to the hospital where the fractures were discovered. After which Dr. Naftaly Attias performed a corpeltomy fusion at C 5-6, C4-7 with a steel cage. The doctor did not bother to tell Dominique that he had accidentally drilled a hole through her spinal cord. In fact, she didn’t find this out until 2012.


By 2013, after Corizon assumed the control I wrote a letter to Corizon’s legal department. Dominique was examined by a physician at St. Luke’s Hospital who stated that the damage to her cervical spine was irrepairable and re-affirmed that she still required a second surgery(A spinal rod). The surgical consult was approved in December 2013, however, nothing has been done.


I filed a medical malpractice case against Dr. Attias in Maricopa County Superior Court (CV 2012-017403) I waived all of the motions and oral arguments for Dominique. Even with a court order, it has taken months just to get a copy of her medical records. Just short of a contempt ruling.


ADOC did not want the release of these medical records not only because of the spinal issues, but because of several issues. In 2011, Dominique fell transferring from the toilet to her wheelchair. You could clearly see a dislocation of her left shoulder and medical refused to address the issue.


So, once again I wrote a letter to Corizon’s legal department. Last November, St. Luke’s hospital performed an MRI. All of the muscles tore, arthritis, and healed improperly, rotator cuff blown out and she requires complete joint replacement. Even with surgery, Dominique will never have full use of her left arm and shoulder. 3 months later, medical claims that they’re trying to find a doctor to perform the procedure.


Dominique had cardiac issues. Specifically aneurysm on the carotid artery with high blood pressure and several blocked arteries. After DOC was notified that Dominique required cardiac surgery, it’s been several YEARS since she has been seen by a cardiologist.


Dominique is a 70-year old woman. With respect to her spine, intermittent paralysis and extreme pain. These assholes wouldn’t even approve her with a wheelchair. Her daughter bought her a wheelchair. She’s in agony with her shoulder. With the cardiac, the pain has her blood pressure at stroke levels.


Nothing is being done and essentially ADOC wants her to remain in a cell, shut up and die! At this point, in considering adding Arizona as a party to the Attias lawsuit just to obtain orders for medical treatments…”                                         ------------------------

Dominique apparently just returned to Perryville from the hospital on 5/11/14 - I dont know what procedure she may have had there, but expect to hear back from her friend soon.

Please, readers, contact Governor Brewer’s office and urge her to appoint an executive team to investigate the privatization of the DOC’s health services - the performance of these private companies has been criminal, for which they are making a profit off of the tax dollars stolen from our schools to care for prisoners - in fact, Corizon is being paid over $300,000 a day to deny prisoners the essential care they need.

Governor's Office
Executive Tower
1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007

(602) 542-4331
 

 You can also complain directly to Corizon about Dominique’s care at 1-855-276-5416
 or by E-MAIL: InmateHealthInquiry@corizonhealth.com

For those of you who are also fighting for a loved one’s medical care at the AZ DOC, please refer to these posts below, and call or email me if you need help. Your loved ones MUST be filing grievances, not just more HNRs, if they aren’t getting the care they need. Reach me, Peggy Plews at 480-580-6807 or arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com.

http://www.arizonaprisonwatch.org/2013/03/corizon-and-az-doc-prisoners-families.html

http://www.arizonaprisonwatch.org/2013/05/corizons-deliberate-indifference.html

http://www.arizonaprisonwatch.org/2014/05/death-sentence-kpnxs-halloran-and.html

photo by PJ Starr / Chalk art by Margaret J Plews

Phoenix, AZ (Thanksgiving 2011)

AZ PRISON ALERT! Tell Brewer to order DOC to prevent prison rape/implement PREA!

 "Justice for Victims of Prison Violence"

Crime Victims' Rights Week (APRIL 2013) 

Governor Brewer has apparently informed the federal government that Arizona has no intentions of protecting its prisoners from rape by abiding by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which is now supposed to be going into effect across the country. Given the current conditions in Arizona's state prisons, this should be no surprise. This is just one more piece of evidence that AZ Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan has no regard whatsoever for the health, safety, or welfare of his prisoners: his actions consistently speaks louder than his words. And we can't let it go this way without a fight. The Department of Corrections (DOC) sucks up over 10% of the state budget, but NO ONE wants to hold them accountable for how that money is being spent, for some reason.

Rejecting the PREA standards means the state actually loses federal funding for the prison system, so there must be some serious problems preventing the DOC from thinking they could comply. As folks may recall, the NAACP sent the AZ DOC Director, Charles Ryan, a letter last fall expressing concern for the safety of gay and transgender prisoners in his custody, as we had received numerous complaints that they were being targeted with violence and the DOC was routinely, repeatedly, refusing to place those who needed it into protective custody (PC), leaving them to be brutalized in general population (GP) or giving them disciplinary tickets and punishment for refusing to house in GP. Ryan responded with his assurances that he cares about each and every one of his prisoners, of course, and wouldn't dream of letting them get hurt, if he can help it.



I've also received reports of DOC staff responding to rape victims with abusive language, harsh housing assignments, loss of privileges, accusations of lying, and hate speech and violence in response to a gay prisoner who was raped. Most often the victim is put in the hole during a brief "investigation" ("Hey, did you rape Joe? He says you did. NO? Oh, sorry to bother you then...."). Once the DOC investigates and fails to substantiate anything, the victim is then moved to another GP yard to be further traumatized and violated, while the accused (often a prisoner in a position of power on the yards) is left in place to brutalize others - this teaches rape victims at the AZ DOC not to speak up at all, which means there are likely far more prison rapes in our state than are reported. 



The AZ DOC is so incapable of adequately investigating rapes that occur in their facilities, in fact, that in 2013, out of more than 80 allegations of inmate-on-inmate "non-consensual sexual acts" (they wont even call it rape) or "abusive sexual contact" they weren't able to substantiate a single one - not a single rapist in their custody was found to have done a thing as of the time their 2013 PREA report was due. I find that astonishing - I'd fire the whole DOC Criminal Investigations Unit over that. Maybe that's why they don't want to comply with federal standards protecting prisoners from rape - Director Ryan clearly must not think there really is such a thing as rape in his prisons.


I hope all you families out there bombard the Governor's office this week with complaints about her decision to allow the DOC to refuse to comply with PREA guidelines, and demand that she take responsibility for investigating the escalating violence against gay and trans prisoners, the brown on black race war, the flourishing heroin trade, the control of most general population yards by gangs, and the horrendous disaster that the privatization of health care at the DOC has been. Please cc your correspondence to the Governor's office to the local media, too. Contact info is below.


One thing which makes it easier for Arizona to get away with rejecting PREA standards, I'm sure, is the fact that the state's "Victims Bill of Rights", as enshrined in the AZ Constitution, deprives one class of people of the same rights everyone else in this state gets when they become crime victims: individuals "in custody for an offense". Even Walmart has more legal standing in court as a crime victim than actual human beings in state custody have. That means that if your child is murdered in custody - even by agents of the state - you also have no "victims rights" guaranteed to you as a survivor (no wonder the DOC leaves so many homicides unsolved...).


The Victims' Bill of Rights for the AZ Constitution was engineered by the state' prosecutors who campaigned hard with crime victims groups to have voters approve the constitutional amendment in 1990. The primary author of the bill, ASU professor Steve Twist, also thinks everything is fine in the most poorly run state prison system in the country, and clearly has no compassion for crime victims in custody - not even those prisoners still considered innocent until proven guilty. 

Thanks to a big push among legislators from Bill Montgomery, Steve Twist's non-profit organization serving crime victims will get a huge boost in funding in coming years. I just don't know how an organization which self-identifies as the "ARIZONA VOICE FOR CRIME VICTIMS" can refuse to acknowledge as a crime victim a woman whose life was destroyed when her son was murdered in prison, or a mentally impaired juvenile in detention being sexually abused by an adult predator in uniform. 

It seems to me that if he really cared about ending the violence and evil humans perpetrate on eachother in this world, Steve Twist would be urging Governor Brewer to reconsider her position on prison rape and implementing the PREA standards across the AZ DOC. The failure to implement PREA standards will place kids in the juvenile and adult criminal justice system at greater risk of sexual abuse, too - and Steve Twist is on Brewer's Children's Protective Services Task force, so it's not like he wouldn't have her ear on this issue. Please especially write to him if you are a survivor of prison violence. He needs to hear from you, now, not me.

STEVEN J. TWIST

ARIZONA VOICE FOR CRIME VICTIMS
P.O. Box 12722

Scottsdale, Arizona 85267

(480) 600-2661

If you folks who care about prisoners don't contact the Governor and media on this, your loved ones will be at even greater risk in custody in this state than they are already, so please, everyone, call or write both the Governor and Gannett News and protest her decisoon on PREA.

Here is the contact info you need:

The Honorable Janice K. Brewer
Arizona Governor
Executive Tower
1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007
WEB CONTACT FORM
(602) 542-4331

Producers and Editors

AZ Republic/ KPNX CH 12 News

200 E. Van Buren

Phoenix, AZ 850o4

(602) 444-8000

gannett@ad.connect.com

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

Some States Opting out of Federal Prison Rape Law

ABC NEWS
May 24, 2014 (AP)
By REBECCA BOONE Associated Press

Several states are refusing to comply with a federal law designed to reduce sexual assaults in prison, with governors criticizing the decade-old law as counterproductive and too expensive to implement.

The governors of Idaho, Texas, Indiana, Utah and Arizona have informed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that they won't try to meet the standards required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Governors were required to certify by May 15 that their states either met the standards designed to curb widespread sexual abuse behind bars, or to promise that they were actively working toward that goal.

"Idaho supports the spirit and intention of PREA and the National PREA Standards, but a law with good intent has evolved into a law with too much red tape," Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter wrote in a letter to Holder sent five days after the deadline. It would cost the state millions of dollars to meet some of the standards, Otter said, and he believed the cost would have little ultimate benefit. Besides, the governor said, the state has taken substantial steps to reduce sexual victimization in correctional facilities.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry told Holder in April that his state wouldn't comply because the rules were too costly and violated states' rights. Perry's letter also encouraged other states to reject the federal law, and said that instead, his state would continue the programs it already has to reduce prison rapes. Perry's spokesman Rich Parsons said Friday that Perry sent a subsequent letter last week to Holder, contending that some PREA standards are in conflict with Texas state laws.

Brenda Smith, a former commissioner on the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission which helped create the PREA standards, said the decision by some states to opt out is shameful.

"These are not some high falutin', unreachable standards. These are things that are constitutional, based on best practices that have been determined in the field and in the courts," Smith said. "As a state you can move over to the sidelines, but people in custody don't get to move over to the sidelines. Providing them safety from sexual abuse is the minimum we can do."

At least 10 more states — Alaska, New York, Ohio, California, Washington, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Colorado, Mississippi and Illinois — have said that they can't meet all the requirements yet, but are actively working toward that goal. New Mexico says it's fully compliant with the law.

Leaders of Just Detention International, an organization that works to end sexual abuse in detention facilities, said they were encouraged that most states are working toward PREA compliance.

"We want actual certifications to be meaningful, so states should certify only when they know that they are in full compliance," said the organization's executive director Lovisa Stannow in a prepared statement. "Until then, the Department of Justice must strictly monitor states to ensure that they are using their federal funds appropriately. No state should be meeting its five percent financial commitment by diverting funds away from essential inmate services like rape crisis counseling - doing so would run counter to the intent of PREA."

The Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed unanimously by Congress in 2003. The next several years were spent developing PREA standards, and in 2012 those rules went into effect. The Department of Justice is expected to publish a list of PREA-compliant states by September.

The major provisions of PREA are designed to change the culture of prisons to one that has zero tolerance for sexual victimization; to change prison facilities so that there are fewer opportunities for rape to occur; and to change reporting policies so that inmates have a safe way to report a crime and a safe place to go if they are sexually victimized.

The law's only enforcement mechanism is a partial loss of grant funding. States that don't comply with PREA can lose up to 5 percent of the federal grant money they receive for corrections. States can keep the money if they promise to use it to come into compliance with the law.

The potential human impact is huge: The Department of Justice says that at least 216,000 of U.S. prisoners were raped or sexually abused behind bars in 2011, and cautions that the number is likely low, because prison rapes are seldom reported. The ACLU estimates that about 2 million people have been raped or sexually abused behind bars since PREA was enacted by Congress.