Author: Brian Sonenstein

Posted on All Posts, Inmate Healthcare

Former Corizon doctor accused of molesting scores of prisoners served with two new lawsuits

With the filing of two new lawsuits in New Mexico this week, Dr. Mark E. Walden stands accused of sexually assaulting scores of prisoners while working for inmate healthcare contractor Corizon Health Services inside two different GEO Group for-profit prisons in the state.

Filed on February 13th and 16th, the lawsuits are the sixth and seventh to be brought against Dr. Walden in the past three years, and raise the total number of Walden’s alleged victims to around 50.

Walden is accused of fondling prisoners’ genitals and conducting superfluous, aggressive rectal exams for ailments like tooth aches and toe fungus. Walden has denied any and all wrongdoing, and Corizon and GEO Group have so far refused to speak with the press on these matters.

The two most recent lawsuits represent a total of seven inmates, and name Walden, Corizon, GEO Group and New Mexico prison and healthcare officials as defendants. Plaintiffs have filed under their initials to avoid harassment and retaliation.

According to one lawsuit, Walden used a screen to keep other staff from looking in and seeing what he was doing. A plaintiff known only as “S.W.” claims he was digitally penetrated by Walden on three separate occasions. When S.W. asked why Walden was conducting these exams, the doctor responded that he was “milking his prostate” and made other nonsensical medical claims. Continue reading →

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Report: Incarcerated people more likely to suffer from chronic illness and infectious disease than public

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a new report (PDF) this month on the health of incarcerated people in state and federal lock-ups from 2011-12. The study focused on both prisoners (i.e. people serving longer sentences) and jail inmates (i.e. people awaiting trial or serving shorter sentences), and found they were not only more likely to have had chronic medical conditions and/or infectious disease than the general population, but were also often denied prescription medication after admission. The report also mentions that incarcerated women and prisoners over 50 suffered at disproportionately higher rates from chronic and infectious medical conditions than the rest of the population.

Over 40% of prisoners and inmates surveyed by the bureau reported current, chronic medical conditions, defined as “noninfectious medical problems, such as cancer, high blood pressure, stroke-related problems, diabetes, heart-related problems, kidney-related problems, arthritis, asthma and cirrhosis of the liver.” Specifically, prisoners and jail inmates were 1.5 and 2 times more likely to report high blood pressure, diabetes or asthma than the general public (respectively) and their rate of diabetes and high blood pressure had nearly doubled from 2004. Around 24% said they had more than one chronic condition.

Additionally, about 21% of prisoners and 14% of jail inmates reported “ever having tuberculosis, hepatitis, or other STDs excluding HIV or AIDS, compared to 5% of the general population.” The bureau found that, across the board, incarcerated people were more likely to have had an infectious disease at some point in their life than others.

The bureau also found that 36% of prisoners stopped taking their prescribed medications upon incarceration because a doctor “did not think medication was necessary or that the facility would not provide the medication.” Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on All Posts, Inmate Healthcare, Rikers Island

New wrongful death lawsuit raises more questions about coming Rikers Island reforms

On February 11th, the Associated Press reported that the mother of deceased Rikers Island inmate Quannell Offley was suing New York City for her son’s wrongful death. The lawsuit is one of many facing the city over Rikers Island and comes after months of reports detailing abuse and neglect by the city’s prison staff.

According to the lawsuit, Offley told prison guards on multiple occasions that he wanted to kill himself after being placed in solitary confinement. His final threat was met by a guard who said, “If you have the balls, go ahead and do it.” He was later found hanging from a bed sheet attached to an air vent in his cell.

Offley’s suicide came just a few weeks after Bradley Ballard, a schizophrenic and diabetic prisoner, also died in a solitary unit at Rikers. Ballard was locked in isolation for 7 days straight without water, exercise, shower, therapy or medication, and was eventually found unconscious on the floor, covered in feces and urine with a rubber band tied tightly around his badly-infected penis. When clinical staff finally arrived, just moments before Ballard’s death, the doctor refused to even touch him or enter his cell. In what would be the last of several severe violations of Ballard’s civil rights, the doctor instructed inmate workers to wrap his filthy, dying body in a bed sheet and remove him.

According to the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations, “A qualified medical practitioner […] is required to visit the SHU once in every 24-hour period to examine into the state of health of the inmates confined in such unit.” But security camera footage of the SHU where Ballard was confined showed medical staff skipping rounds or speaking with prisoners for little more than a minute at a time. Having been in isolation around the same time as Ballard at Rikers, Offley appears to have experienced similar neglect by medical staff in the unit. Continue reading →

9,983 Comments Posted on All Posts, Privatization

Ohio quietly recommends new contract with troubled private food contractor Aramark

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) has recommended the state sign a new two-year contract with the for-profit food vendor, Aramark. The ODRC did not announce the recommendation, which was actually completed last year. The Associated Press got wind of it only after “a records request said the prisons department was satisfied with Aramark’s performance and wanted to renew despite issues with the contract.”

Those “issues” refer to the long list of offenses and contract violations, including food shortages, contaminated food supplies and ‘improper relations’ between employees and inmates, for which Ohio fined Aramark $272,000 last year. Since then, Ohio prison officials say Aramark’s service has improved.

There are scant details on why the ODRC thinks Aramark is fit to continue serving Ohio prisons. According to the Sandusky Register, the evaluation form the AP obtained was little more than a series of check boxes, yes/no answers and standardized questions, “not a detailed analysis.” But one thing the evaluation did show was that state officials were impressed that Aramark’s cost-per-prisoner was similar to that of Indiana and Michigan, where they also have contracts.

The comparison to Michigan, in particular, is interesting because things are not exactly going smoothly there with regards to the state’s contract with Aramark. Continue reading →

17,902 Comments Posted on All Posts, Inmate Healthcare

Corizon Health Services could (and should) lose its $1.2 billion contract with Florida

Florida’s new corrections secretary, Julie Jones, is threatening to toss out Corizon Health Services’ $1.2 billion contract with the state if they refuse to negotiate a new deal “with an eye to enhancing prescription drug delivery, mental health services and nursing care [including] requiring more registered nurses to be on hand rather than less-skilled staffers.”

The nation’s largest for-profit healthcare provider in prisons was also recently accused of withholding reports on inmate deaths from Florida state officials. According to journalists at the Palm Beach Post, Corizon is said to have even repressed medical exams that would indicate whether inmates had been injured by guards in 2013 and 2014.

Is it really worth the state’s time, money and energy to try and save this contract? Florida should just stop and take a look at Corizon’s record in other parts of the country. If they did, they would see that theirs is not an isolated case, but instead falls perfectly in line with Corizon’s pattern of abuse and misconduct in practically every prison they serve.

Just four months ago, a New York state investigation found that Corizon had routinely lied to families of deceased inmates, including in cases where they may have been responsible for the death. Their problems with understaffing nurses, neglecting patient needs and tampering with prescriptions are widespread and severe.

Corizon has been sued nearly 700 times for malpractice in the past five years. Here in Alameda County, where I live, they were just part of an $8.3 million settlement over failing to treat an inmate who later died at the jail in Santa Rita.

And it’s not just Corizon patients that are suffering; the company has mistreated and endangered its own employees, too. Continue reading →

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In New York City, ending youth solitary confinement comes with a complicated price tag

Under Mayor de Blasio’s new preliminary budget, 282 correction officers would be brought on to oversee New York City’s juvenile prisoners as funding for staff and alternative programming doubles to $25.3 million in 2016 — the year NYC is scheduled to end solitary confinement for 18-21 year olds.

The mayor’s proposal, which arrives amid a federal lawsuit and several bombshell investigations concerning conditions in the city’s jails, also includes:

  • Funding for 6 new staff at the Department of Investigation to investigate “Department of Correction excessive use of force allegations and allegations of criminal conduct.”
  • A $1.8 million infusion to troubled private healthcare provider Corizon to provide additional medical and mental health staff for the new Enhanced Supervision Housing Unit (ESHU) for solitary confinement.
  • Expanding the hiring task force known as the Applicant Investigation Unit and re-establishing a dedicated recruitment unit in an effort to fight the epidemic corruption and abuse among newly-hired CO’s.
  • Provisions for 10 new corrections officers to monitor feeds of the new $15 million security camera network and 6 more CO’s for expanding the canine unit.
  • Significant collective bargaining increases for the officers’ unions

It’s important to note that last month, just before the city voted to ban solitary for prisoners 21 and under, and just after several successive months of mounting public pressure to reduce guard-on-inmate violence, the Board of Correction (BOC) amended its proposed rule change to include the condition that the youth solitary ban only take effect if ‘adequate funding for staff and alternative programming’ is available in 2016.

This was also the same vote that authorized the construction and staffing of the controversial $15 million ESHU, which shocked former prisoners, families and advocates when it was announced and led to protests at the BOC hearings and final vote.

The combination of nearly 300 more corrections officers, a boatload of funding and a new solitary unit has turned a well-intentioned effort to end youth prisoner abuse into a deepened commitment to youth incarceration and solitary confinement. This is hardly a fair compromise. As far as I can tell, no comparable effort or funding has been afforded to getting juvenile prisoners out and into programs, treatments and settings that might actually help them.

The New York City Council has yet to respond to the mayor’s budget, but if it were to meet these conditions, the corrections officers and the dues-collecting unions that represent them would arguably stand to gain more from these “reforms” than the city’s chronically victimized prisoners.

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Conflict of interest brewing as Ohio confronts prison overcrowding

Ohio’s prison system is facing a severe overcrowding crisis. With facilities hovering around 130% capacity, prison chief Gary Mohr considered declaring an overcrowding emergency for the first time in the state’s history. This would have granted early release to prisoners nearing the end of their sentences, but those plans were inexplicably scuttled less than a month ago.

It was unclear what the alternative strategy would be until Governor John Kasich released his budget proposal last week.

Kasich’s proposal calls for increasing the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) budget from $1.62 billion to $1.72 billion by 2017. It also doubles the budget for prisoner addiction services and commits $58 million to pursuing sentencing alternatives for low-level, nonviolent offenders over the next two years.

But without plans or programs in motion to immediately reduce the number of people behind bars in Ohio, the ODRC’s new money will likely be channeled into increasing staff levels and, potentially, signing new contracts with private prison companies to reduce the burden on state facilities. Continue reading →