But there is at least one document the administration wanted to hide.
New court filings reveal that the state suppressed a report from its own consultant warning that California's prison suicide-watch practices encouraged inmate deaths.
Lindsay Hayes, a national expert on suicide prevention in prisons, told corrections officials in 2011 that the state's system of holding suicidal inmates for days in dim, dirty, airless cells with unsanitized mattresses on the floor was compounding the risk that they would take their own lives.
His report described in detail inmates being divested of their clothes and possessions and robed in a "safety smock." Hayes concluded that such conditions encouraged prisoners to declare they were no longer suicidal just to escape the holding cells. Many of them took their own lives soon after.
The state asked Hayes to create a short version of his report that omitted his damaging findings, to give to a court monitor and lawyers for prisoners, the court documents show. Hayes complied, but when inmate attorneys obtained a complete copy, the state asked a U.S. District Court to order it destroyed. The judge refused.
The report says the state's handling of suicidal inmates is "seemingly punitive" and "anti-therapeutic." Hayes noted that guards, not mental health workers, dictate many of the conditions of suicide watches, such as whether to allow daily showers. Hayes alleged prison workers sometimes falsified watch logs showing how frequently those inmates were checked. continue reading...
7 comments:
It should be suppressed. It's irrelevant information. These idiots do stupid things. Suicide isn't a mental health or medical issue. It's a personal issue.
99% of the attempts are fake.
How many C.Os committed suicide during the same time frame?
@11:03, thats a statistic that should be as clear as the states desire to get a good count during count time. Great question.
Half the time suicide is prevented the other half is due to inmate on inmate threats to harm families if they don't take their own lives the other small percent is drug endused psychotic mental episodes resulting from overdosed meds these fucks cheek. But now its the conditions they are in that prompts suicide. Lol does anyone think that maybe potty watch was mistaken for actual suicide crisis venues. Where I work suicide watch is done from outside a hospital like room full ventilation, full lighting, and a window to that allows the officers to observe the inmate. Potty watch on the other hand is done in a confined cell that shares the same air the officer breaths as the same lighting the officer is preveed to. Someone needs to wake up and realize these claims aren't being made by concerned citizens, they are being made by individuals who see a monetary gain from all this...
So is prison conditions also responsible for the countless others who commit suicide throughout society. If there are any paralells to be made shouldn't that be with those outside of prison walls. To conclude the measures taken to prevent the act of suicide is some how a trigger for it later on is lunacy. The shrink who compiled this BS either had and axe to grind and a name to be made for him or her self.
The department cannot stop a person truly intent on ending his or her own life, and that is regardless of how well inmates are being cuddled.
Wow, these are some outstanding posts. Only people who see this nonsense day in and day out can relate. R.S.
When we become capable of putting a stop to murder inside the prison walls, then perhaps we will have a shot at putting a stop to self-murder (aka -suicide), until then we can only do the best we can in light of so-called inmate rights. In other words, suicide can not be stopped only curtailed. But those in the choir already know this. No rocket science needed.
Post a Comment