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HEVESI: GUARDS TO GET PAY IN OCTOBER
CO charged with bringing drugs into prison
Keeping drugs out of local prisons
Sam sez jail's OK
Elmira Correctional Facility employee Memorial
State Investigates Fire, Stabbing Incidents At Cape Vincent Prison
Spitzer Orders Sharp Cuts in Cost of Prisoner Phone Calls
An off-duty New York State correction officer fatally shot a man
Inmate gets 6-12 more years for throwing feces at guards
State correction officer kills himself on duty
Spitzer Seeks Commission to Study Prison Closings
Rotting Away - Thousands of New York inmates have hepatitis C. Only a few hundred get treatment.
Feds file civil rights lawsuit against state Corrections Department
Appellate court upholds conviction of inmate who slugged corrections officer
Female Correctional employee charged with rape of inmate
Text of 2007 New York Workers' Compensation Reform Bill
Changing vacation scheduling not a mandatory subject of collective bargaining
LANDMARK SETTLEMENT INCREASES TREATMENT AND HOUSING PROGRAMS FOR PRISONERS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS IN NEW YORK STATE PRISONS
Crime fight is showing results
State prison inmate sentenced for teen’s murder
Muslim officer can wear religious headgear on duty
Correction officers saved on the job by heart defibrillators
Man pleads guilty to possession of weapon
Settlement lets N.Y. Muslim prison guards wear skullcaps
Former CO charged with workers' comp fraud
By YANCEY ROY
Gannett News Service.
August 7, 2006
ALBANY -- Under heavy union
pressure, New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi announced Monday that state prison
guards will get their full retroactive pay in their Oct. 26
paychecks.
Hevesi, a Democrat who is running for re-election, said he
would speed up the timetable for sending out the retroactive pay, but took a
shot at what a top aide called a lack of professionalism by leaders of the
guards' union.
Correction officers had won a battle for four years' worth
of raises and back pay in the spring. The raises are retroactive to 2003 and
cover about 23,000 officers.
Hevesi had initially said his office would
not be able to process and cut all the checks until 2007 -- roughly 2.3 million
separate checks had to be recalculated -- because of the complicated
calculations involving pay scales, differentials and other items.
But
this summer the guards union, the New York State Correction Officers Protection
and Benevolent Association, upped the pressure on Hevesi. They planned peaceful
protests and set up a hot line for members to call Hevesi's office to complain.
They had announced a demonstration during Hevesi's campaign stop at the State
Fair later this month. Also, upstate Republican senators -- who represent much
of the union's membership -- and Hevesi's GOP opponent, Christopher Callaghan,
began criticizing the comptroller's handling of the matter.
Last month,
Hevesi announced each guard would get a $7,500 advance on his/her back pay on
Aug. 31. Monday, he said every union member would get their full retroactive pay
in October. Guards who are entitled to a 25-year longevity pay boost will
receive that in November. The pay raises were 2.25 percent of 2003, 2.75 percent
for 2004, and 3 percent each for 2005 and this year.
In a letter to the
guards, Deputy Comptroller Thomas Sanzillo noted that the delay was due, in
part, to the guards' ``very, very complicated'' contract. Then he criticized the
union's leaders :
``... rather than work with us, your leaders went out
and gave lots of bad information. We feel they did that to cover themselves and
make them look good at the expense of our office,'' Sanzillo wrote. ``Most of
the people working on this complicated contract are public employee union
members like you. They have worked very hard to get this job done. They have
always been professional. The same is not true for your union
leaders.''
Union president Larry Flanagan said he had not received the
letter as of Monday morning and would comment later.
By: By DENISE A. RAYMO Staff Writer September 18, 2006
MALONE — A veteran correction officer is charged with trafficking heroin inside the walls of Bare Hill Correctional Facility.
Michael D. Bradish, 43, of Route 190, Plattsburgh was arraigned before Moira Town Justice James Durant and sent to Franklin County Jail in lieu of $100,000 cash bail.
More arrests are pending as the four-month investigation by the Department of Corrections Inspector General’s Office continues, said District Attorney Derek Champagne.
Bradish, who has been in corrections for 16 years, was arrested about 10 p.m. Thursday while in uniform.
He was charged with third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, third-degree bribe receiving, first-degree attempted promotion of prison contraband, second-degree receiving a reward for official misconduct and fourth-degree conspiracy.
“This was all tied into an investigation the Inspector General’s Office was doing with my office into the cycle of alleged contraband and how it was finding its way into the facility,” Champagne said.
“The IG’s Office did an exhaustive amount of work over the last four months, and we fully expect to continue the investigation that could lead to other correctional facilities and additional arrests.”
Bradish had “numerous amounts” of small packages of heroin mailed to him through the U.S. Postal Service, Champagne said.
Bradish would allegedly take them into the facility as he came to work and then distribute the drugs to inmates, getting cash and assorted gifts in exchange for the drugs.
There is little screening of correction officers reporting to work other than the person showing his or her identification card and badge, Champagne said, so the alleged transport of drugs could be made easily.
“That’s something the IG’s Office and my office will be looking at,” he said, adding that it is unlikely a security check of employees would be added at all state correctional facilities.
“We’re expecting to keep it local, but it will definitely encompass (prisons in) Clinton County, as well,” Champagne said.
Clinton County has two correctional facilities: Clinton Correctional and Altona Correctional Facility.
“There are several other targets (in the contraband case),” Champagne said, “and we’re getting to the source of a lot of not only these cases, but the spinoff of other narcotics cases, as well.
“In light of the IG’s investigation here, in Clinton County they are aware of others who have also been under surveillance.
“One thing that’s been unfortunate is that the vast majority of those in corrections are hard-working individuals,” the district attorney said.
“This is in no way indicative of the Department of Corrections. You have a few bad apples, and we’re weeding them out and sending a message.”
September 24, 2006
When 16-year Correction Officer Michael D. Bradish was arrested and charged with drug trafficking in Bare Hill Correctional Facility last week, speculation immediately roiled up as to whether officers entering prisons for work ought routinely to be searched for contraband. As insulting as some officers might regard the idea, it isn't a bad one at all.
Of the thousands of correction officers at work in the one federal and 10 state correctional facilities in our three-county area, only a rare few make news for violating the trust the public has invested in them. When one does stray, it does make news, of course: Their professional charge is to enhance law and order; when they do just the opposite, it is as newsworthy as a doctor cheating Medicaid or a teacher abusing a student.
But, occasionally, an officer does yield to temptation. There is nothing to indicate that it happens with any greater frequency than in the general population — in fact, maybe less. And we're certainly not convicting Bradish here. But, if he does turn out to be guilty, he will have delivered a severe wallop to his profession.
Franklin County District Attorney Derek Champagne has suggested that heightened security measures should be in force at the entrance to prisons — at least, the local ones. His office and the Office of the Inspector General will be examining possibilities in this regard. Perhaps, for example, entering officers should be obliged to empty their pockets to be sure they are not carrying contraband in.
This prospect would probably be opposed by the union and even by some officers. They would be inclined to view it as an unwarranted intrusion into their rights.
But the security of the inmates and their colleagues is the stake in this debate. Every responsible correction officer should welcome the chance to head off another embarrassment. Their dignity relies more on certainty of a clean record than by free passage to the inside of the facility.
Being searched, clearly, is not the way any of us dreams of beginning our work day, any more than we would embrace the notion of providing a urine sample. Yet, if that's what it takes to maintain our good name and the reputation of our profession after a serious compromise by an errant member, the price is not too high.
More important, it would be a giant step in stopping drugs from getting into the prisons, which would surely be an even bigger step in the constant fight to retain order on the inside.
For the sake of thousands of our friends and neighbors working hard in an already-dangerous setting, we endorse anything that makes their workplace a little bit safer and protects their good name.
BY DON SINGLETON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz is such a happy prisoner that when he came up for parole recently he didn't even request to be released, the upcoming issue of New York magazine reports.
The notorious murderer - who still has about 335 years on his sentence - has been denied parole repeatedly over the years. But he apparently has found contentment inside the maximum-security Sullivan Correctional Facility in the Catskills.
His easygoing attitude stems from his conversion from a twisted Satanist to a sought-after Christian pastor of sorts, according to New York magazine.
"I can't undo what was done," Berkowitz told the magazine. "It's 30 years ago. Enough already."
"There is no doubt in my mind that a demon has been living in me since birth," he said later.
Berkowitz terrorized the city in 1976 and 1977, killing six people and wounding seven.
While he would not discuss the killing spree, he eagerly spoke to New York magazine about his prison ministry, peppering the conversation with quotations from the Bible.
He told the magazine that reading the Bible - specifically, verse 6 of Psalm 34 - led to his conversion to Christianity.
"This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles," he said.
Now middle-aged, Berkowitz has the same belly he carried around 30 years ago, but his face is "rounder, softer," the magazine notes. "Son of Sam looks harmless, like the aging postal worker he might have become."
In 2004, Berkowitz told state parole officials that he was "doing very well" - but should never be released because of his crimes, a transcript revealed.
"I have to deal with the circumstances, the things that happened in the past that I regret terribly," he had said.
Originally published on September 10, 2006
Construction has begun on the long awaited and historic Elmira Correctional Facility Memorial. I wanted to extend an invitation to all State correctional facility employees that might be interested in sponsoring a granite paver stone in memory of a officer who worked at the facility and has since passed away.
The cost for sponsorship is $75 per stone. Each stone has 3 lines available for inscription, the first being the name of the person, the second being his/her title, and the 3rd being his/her service dates with the department.
I came up with the idea of a memorial about 4 years ago when Elmira had a "rash" of correction officer deaths, many who were very young, and had become friends of mine. I watched as the flags went "down" the funeral's where held, and that seemed to be the end of them, only being remembered with fine memories.
This memorial will each day remind everyone of the persons that we called co-worker, associate and friend.
I am hoping to sponsor about 75 more stones for officers that have not been sponsored due to the fact that they have no family or close friends living anymore. If you know anyone that may have worked at Elmira and have passed, please consider sponsoring them or some one that has no one left to sponsor them. I would like to be able to get everyone a stone. Thanks alot, and keep something in mind.....the state nor the department of correctional services have anything to do with this memorial except granting me permission to build it. All funds have come from employee donations, union contributions, and fund raisers. If interested in sponsoring someone that has no one, please send a check or money order made out to the Elmira CF memorial fund, PO Box 500, Elmira, NY 14902 C/O LT. R. Ferguson or CO R. Grier.
Thanks in advance to all that have and may contribute.
Lt. R. Ferguson, Elmira Correctional Facility
Thursday, January 04, 2007, 2:17pm
The state confirmed Thursday it was investigating two separate incidents at the Cape Vincent Correctional Facility.
According to a spokeswoman in Albany, the most recent incident involved a fire in the prison.
Linda Foglia of the New York State Department of Correctional Services, said an inmate's bed was set on fire at 12:30 a.m. Thursday.
She said the inmate had been using the rest room when the blaze broke out.
There were no injuries and damage was confined to the bed, Foglia said.
She said the state is also investigating an apparent stabbing at the prison.
According to Foglia, the staff received an anonymous note Wednesday morning urging officials to check on a specific inmate.
She said when employees investigated, they learned the inmate had a quarter-inch deep puncture wound.
It's unclear when the injury occurred. However, Foglia said it appears the inmate was attacked by two prisoners in the gym several days ago.
She said the medical staff checked the wound, which was described as minor.
Foglia said reports that the prison had been locked down were false.
Published: January 9, 2007
ALBANY, Jan. 8 Gov. Eliot Spitzer struck an early blow at the policies of his predecessor on Monday, sharply reducing steep Pataki-era charges that relatives and friends of inmates in New York State’s prisons have had to pay on collect telephone calls from them.
The governor’s move, effective April 1, came one day before state lawyers were to appear before the state’s highest court to defend the old policy, under which inmates were charged far higher fees than the public would be for the same calls.
“In light of assuring that as much information is available to the court and plaintiffs as possible, we decided to announce it today,” said Paul Larrabee, a spokesman for Mr. Spitzer.
Since 1996, the telephone company that provides calling services to state inmates, currently Verizon, has been required to return more than half its profits to the state. The arrangement earned the state $16 million in 2005. The phone companies passed along those charges to people accepting inmates’ collect calls, in some cases tripling the price of those calls, according to prisoners’ rights groups.
The Pataki administration had aggressively defended the charges, arguing that they helped pay for services to inmates and extra security features to prevent prison phones from being used to commit fraud or other crimes.
But nonprofit groups have long described the practice as exploitative and counterproductive, saying that both prisoners and the public benefited when inmates could readily stay in touch with their wives, husbands and parents. They also argued that the practice essentially charged families for their relatives’ incarceration.
“They were taking advantage of the high price to cover the cost of programs and services that the prison system should be providing in any case,” said Robert Gangi, the executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit group that monitors conditions in state prisons.
Legislation to end the high charges had passed the Democratic-controlled State Assembly several times in recent years but had stalled in the Senate. Mr. Spitzer, however, signaled during last year’s gubernatorial campaign that he would change the policy if elected. Yesterday, he was warmly praised by advocates who had pressed for the change.
“This is a victory for all New Yorkers because increased contact with family members is proven to reduce recidivism rates after release,” said Annette Dickerson, coordinator of the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice, which pushed for the change. Ms. Dickerson is also the director of education at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which filed suit two years ago on behalf of prisoners’ families to end the charges.
Most states still charge their prison inmates higher rates for telephone calls than are paid by the public, often through direct surcharges or commissions. Mr. Spitzer’s move makes New York one of only a few that have ended the practice.
Under the arrangement that will take effect April 1, the state will not share in any revenue from the phone calls. Mr. Larrabee said that the cost of a 20-minute call would fall to about $3, from about $6.20. Inmates in New York prisons are allowed to make only collect calls.
Prisoner advocates also praised Mr. Spitzer for abolishing the high charges without abolishing any of the prison programs for which the fees helped pay. Those programs including AIDS medications and family reunion programs must now be paid for out of general revenues, another reason why Mr. Spitzer, who will soon present next year’s budget, made the announcement on Monday.
“We are preparing the state budget,” Mr. Larrabee said. “And we’re no longer going to have that revenue stream.”
An off-duty New York State correction officer fatally shot a man during a traffic dispute last night near La Guardia Airport in Queens, the police said. It was unclear how the dispute, which apparently began with a honked horn, escalated to gunfire.
The shooting took place shortly after 7 p.m. when the officer, identified by the State Department of Correctional Services as Emilio Maldonado, 29, stopped his car behind a sport utility vehicle at a stoplight at Ditmars Avenue and 94th Street, investigators said. After the light turned green, Mr. Maldonado apparently honked his horn.
The police said two men who were in the sport utility vehicle got out and approached Mr. Maldonado's car, where he was sitting with his wife and child, the police said. The two men and Mr. Maldonado got into a dispute, perhaps involving a struggle for the officer's gun, investigators said. Mr. Maldonado fired one shot, hitting one of the men in the chest.
The person who was shot, identified only as a 36-year-old man, was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he later died, the police said. The other man, also not identified, fled the scene, according to the police, who said he was later caught and taken to the 115th Precinct station house for questioning. The correction officer was also being questioned by the police last night.
Mr. Maldonado works at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, the state's only maximum security prison for women, according to Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman for the Department of Correctional Services. She said that Mr. Maldonado's personal weapon was registered with the department.
"They are able to carry their guns when they are off-duty," Ms. Foglia said. "They are peace officers. They have the ability to make arrests."
She added: "They are required to register their weapon with our agency and he did so. So on our end, he is following the appropriate procedures."
January 09, 2007
Monticello - A state prison inmate has gotten six to 12 years added onto his sentence for throwing feces at three correction officers.
William Figueroa, 36, was sentenced yesterday in Sullivan County Court to the added time for his conviction on three counts of aggravated harassment of an employee by an inmate.
Figueroa has been in prison since 1992 on drug sale and attempted robbery charges. He has racked up more than 60 disciplinary charges in prison as he serves a five-to-15-year sentence.
He was eligible for release in May 2007.
On Dec. 21, 2005, Figueroa, already in the Special Housing Unit at the Sullivan Correctional Facility, threw feces at a correction officer.
Then he threw feces at the correction officer who tried to clean up the first mess. Then he threw feces at a correction officer who was escorting a nurse on rounds.
On Oct. 18, a jury convicted Figueroa in all three assaults.
Yesterday, Judge Frank LaBuda gave Figueroa consecutive two-to-four-year terms on each count, for a total six to 12 years added onto the time he has already served.
February 01, 2007
Albany - A 34-year-old state correction officer shot himself to death late last night on his post at Green Haven state prison in Dutchess County. It's believed to be the first on-duty suicide in the history of state corrections, said Linda Foglia, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Correctional Services.
The officer was a veteran of nearly 10 years with DOCS and had an unblemished record. He wasn't immediately identified.
The officer was assigned to an observation tower on the perimeter of the maximum-security prison. His wife called the prison at about 10:30 p.m. last night, saying she was concerned about him.
Prison staffers went to the tower, but couldn't open the hatch because of the weight of the officer's prone body, Foglia said.
State police ascended to the tower with a ladder, and the Dutchess County medical examiner pronounced the officer dead at about 1:30 a.m.
The officer shot himself with his state-issued AR-15 rifle. State police are investigating.
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: February 5, 2007
ALBANY, Feb. 2 — Moving to reverse decades of expansion, Gov. Eliot Spitzer is proposing a commission to study closing some of New York State’s dozens of prisons.
The effort would try to duplicate for the prison system the recent commission that studied closing hospitals around the state and issued a final report late last year. That report recommended shutting down at least 20 hospitals across New York and shrinking or merging dozens of others.
If the new commission is approved by the Legislature, New York may join the growing number of states that have sought to rein in high prison costs through closings or consolidations.
Behind Mr. Spitzer’s proposal lies a recognition that New York’s prison population, which peaked in 1999 at more than 71,000 inmates, has rapidly declined since.
Thanks to falling crime rates in New York City, fewer felony arrests and efforts by prison officials to move nonviolent offenders out of the system, the prison population has fallen by roughly 8,000 inmates since the peak, though it rose slightly last year.
Assistants to the governor said he would also create, through an executive order, a second commission to study changes to sentencing laws. Such measures have helped shrink inmate ranks in other states and could in New York, too.
But any effort to close state prisons will face formidable political obstacles. New York’s sprawling network of prisons has created thousands of jobs upstate, where manufacturing jobs have been slowly disappearing.
Much like New York’s vast array of state-supported hospitals — some of which lie more than half-empty for lack of demand — the $2.7 billion-a-year state prison system has become, in effect, an economic development program.
Mr. Spitzer hopes to replace the state-subsidized employment on which upstate New York depends with private-sector jobs and investment that could secure its future down the road.
But a powerful alliance of upstate lawmakers and correction officers’ unions guard their constituents’ and members’ state-financed jobs and are likely to resist any effort to downsize the system.
A similar — and even more influential — alliance exists between health care unions, hospitals and Republican and Democratic lawmakers, some of them representing districts in which health care facilities, empty or not, are the largest employers.
Both the prison and health care coalitions have demonstrated their political potency in the past, mustering millions of dollars for campaign contributions and political ads to advance their agendas and punish politicians who have crossed them.
State corrections union officials say that they will make their views clear in the coming debate, too.
“We’re not open to any closures at this point,” said Lawrence Flanagan Jr., the president of the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which has donated at least $1.8 million to state politicians in recent years.
He added: “If anything, the prison population has increased. It went up 500 this last year.”
Likewise, many Republican state senators say they are dismayed at the possibility of sacrificing constituents’ livelihoods in the short term to Mr. Spitzer’s agenda, regardless of the long-term benefits he anticipates.
“I’m very concerned about the commission,” said Senator Elizabeth O’C. Little, a Republican whose Adirondacks district includes 12 prisons and prison camps. Five of them are in Franklin County, which has roughly one inmate for every 10 residents, according to census figures, the highest concentration in the state.
“They have a tremendous economic impact,” Ms. Little said. “There are over 5,000 corrections officers living in my district. In most of these communities, the prisons are the biggest employer. It’s not just corrections officers, but secretaries and other staff, too.”
Indeed, between 1990 and 2006, according to research by the Public Policy Institute of New York State, two-thirds of the net new jobs upstate were paid for by taxpayers. That includes jobs in prisons, other government positions and some jobs in health care and social assistance.
by Kai Wright
December 6th, 2005 1:25 PM
Jimi Hammerstein learned he was sick with hep C only after leaving prison.
It's hard to imagine how a doctor could miss Jimi Hammerstein's primary health risk. The graying Brooklyn native spent most of the last 10 years upstate for slinging dope in Park Slope—back when the neighborhood wwas still in transition. "I remember when this neighborhood wasn't nothing like this," he says, laughing as he sits in a drop-in center for ex-offenders on Fourth Avenue, the Slope's still-gritty border with Downtown Brooklyn. "This was like, dope land!"
Dope land's geography extended into the prison compounds Hammerstein bounced between. His habit continued once he was inside, and just as intensely. Most inmates snort heroin rather than inject it, but as Hammerstein describes the scene, "You got the die-hard dope fiends like I was, where there's only one way to fly. If you're going to do any kind of substance, you might as well shoot it."
Hammerstein's commitment to the needle made him a textbook candidate for two of the modern era's most aggressive communicable diseases: HIV and hepatitis C—a deadly virus that, when left untreated, slowly devours your liver. He tested positive for HIV back in 1989, before he entered prison. He says he copped to the infection at the beginning of his two bids, but he'd never heard of hep C and claims no one— certainly not corrections healtth officials—ever asked him about it.
Only after his release last year did the questions begin. "People used to say to me, 'Oh, you're HIV; are you hep C too?' " Hammerstein remembers. "I'd say no. And they'd say, 'Oh, that's unusual.' " He'd shrug the idea off. "I'd been taking tests up north for years, and no one mentioned anything about hep C." His doc on the outside finally insisted he get tested, and in what should have been no surprise, he was positive.
Like Hammerstein, thousands of prisoners around the country are slowly dying from a wholly treatable disease because corrections officials are doing everything possible to avoid caring for them. New York is among the worst offenders, as by most estimates it boasts more inmates living with hep C than any other state. But after years of advocates and inmates fruitlessly lobbying for change, a series of recent lawsuits, including a class action case now pending in federal court, appears to have finally forced the state's hand.
Over the last three decades, hep C has been a stealthy but virulent sidekick to its celebrity sister HIV. Nearly 3 million people nationwide now have chronic infections—triple thee HIV caseload. They are uniquely concentrated in prisons: At least 14 percent of New York's inmates are known to have hep C. And as these legions barrel toward the disease's end stage, in which the inflamed liver turns cirrhotic, they promise to collapse the teetering liver-transplant market. Already, hep C is the number one reason for swapping out a liver; the waiting list for transplants is 17,000 people deep and growing. The sooner you start treatment, the less likely you'll need one.
In response to growing awareness about the epidemic—aand its concentration among drug users who cycle in and out of incarceration—the state corrections department says it nnow offers tests to all incoming prisoners whose profiles raise red flags, as Hammerstein's should have. But even for those who get screened, learning you've got the disease is where, for most, the process ends. According to a Justice Department census, as of 2000, only about 300 of the state's estimated 10,000 hep C–positivee inmates were being treated.
Prison health advocates charge this dismal rate is no accident. Coincidentally or not, treating hep C is one of the more expensive tasks in medicine. The multi-drug regimen can cost as much as $35,000 per patient. Corrections already spends almost $23 million a year on AIDS meds, nearly 40 percent of its whole pharmacy budget.
Until mid October, when the department began revising its policies in response to ongoing litigation, any inmate needing hep C treatment who had a history of using drugs—as does almosst everyone with the virus—was required to first enroll in a six-monnth class for users. The official approach, which has been slowly shifting over the last couple of years, originally forced inmates to complete the course before getting treatment. It was expansive and unbending: If you'd ever done drugs or alcohol in your life, you had to take the class.
"You got guys that been in the system eight, nine, 10 years," scoffs Rahiem (not his real name), a hep C–positive lifeer at the medium-security facility in Auburn who refused to take the drug class and so hasn't gotten treatment. "They don't have no record of drug use from disciplinary actions. But they're denied treatment." Rahiem wears long gray dreadlocks and stares with measured intensity when insisting that he last got high in 1973. But his old girlfriend once got charged with smuggling whiskey into the visiting room, he says, so now he's stuck with a user label.
"These rules are barriers that they set up," complains Romeo Sanchez, a hep C–positive ex-offender who organizes prisson activism at the New York City AIDS Housing Network, "because they don't want to pay for it."
But as Robert Hilton found out, even if you go along with the rules, the outcome is often the same: no treatment. Hilton is the lead plaintiff in the new class action, filed in federal court on August 17.
Hilton began treatment for hep C at Bellevue in 2002. But a few months after starting, he became homeless, and his treatment was interrupted. In August 2004, he was locked up on a parole violation and shipped upstate to Altona. Upon intake there, he underwent a routine exam at which he told doctors about his infection, the resulting liver disease, and his treatment history.
But the medical staff waited two months to conduct its own tests, according to the complaint, and a full seven months to recommend him for treatment. Then Chief Medical Officer Lester Wright ruled Hilton couldn't start until he took drug addiction classes, even though no previous doctor in or out of the system had suggested it and even though Hilton professed to have not used drugs in 13 yearsā€”much of which time he spent passing drug tests as a parolee.
Hilton acquiesced and signed up for the class—only too be put on a lengthy waiting list. He was then transferred to another facility, where counseling staff again tried to enroll him in an addiction class. This time, his enrollment was turned down because he would be eligible for parole before the class finished. "As antiretroviral treatment continues to be denied on the basis of this catch-22," the class action complaint notes, "Mr. Hilton's liver continues to deteriorate."
The state declined to comment on this and other suits it now faces.
In previous suits, the corrections department has offered a reasonable-sounding defense. Hep C treatment is no jokeā€”at least a shot a week and daily pills that can cause depression and flu-like symptoms similar to those of heroin withdrawal. Even the regular needle use can be traumatic for someone kicking an old habit. So the department worries about triggering relapses. And all credible medical guidelines stress that no one who's actively using drugs or alcohol should start treatment without getting sober, lest they fail to complete the regimen.
The stakes are high: If you start and don't finish, your virus will likely mutate, developing the sort of drug resistance we've heard so much about with HIV.
Critics, however, point out that all of the guidelines cited by corrections warn only against treating active users. The concern over relapse is the department's own.
In early November, the prison officials submitted a sweeping policy change to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, asking that a central part of Hilton's case be dismissed based on that change. The new policy removes the drug abuse class requirement but maintains an insistence that inmates have "no evidence of active substance abuse" in the previous six months. Those with evidence of such will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Alexander Rienert, an attorney with Koob & Magoolaghan, which is leading the Hilton class action and has led a number of previous hep C suits, says that's not near good enough. He wants to see a far more detailed portrait of how the system will scale up treatment—and how it will get those it has previously turned away into treatment. "What Dr. Wright is saying is, trust us, you don't have to be involved anymore," scoffs Rienert. "But our experience is, the only time an individual gets treated is when an attorney has stepped in."
Moreover, Rienert says he's already received at least one new complaint from an inmate who has been denied treatment based on his failure to take a drug abuse class.
Milton Zelermyer, a staff attorney with Legal Aid's Prisoners' Rights Project, adds that there remain plenty of ways for corrections to ration treatment. Already, the prisons only test certain inmates for hep C, and as Hammerstein's experience shows, many likely candidates slip through unscreened. But effective hep C screening and treatment also require extensive diagnostics, including regular blood tests and a liver biopsy—just thhe sort of thing the department delayed for months before denying Hilton based on the drug class rule. So the new policy looks like progress, Zelermyer says, but "how it works in reality is another question."
Prison health advocates say the system's failure to deal adequately with hep C is just the latest disaster to come from letting prison guards control public health. Even as the narrow legal battle over hep C intensifies, advocates are pressing a broader legislative reform. Of course, for activists in Albany, reforms for guys like Rahiem and Hammerstein and Hilton have been the most dead on arrival.
The corrections department's health care challenge is already massive—it runs what amounts to the nation's largest HIVV medical practice, for instance. Yet it is exempt from Department of Health oversight because state law considers its facilities more akin to private colleges than public hospitals. The state assembly wants that law changed, but neither the health department nor corrections wants to be part of an arranged marriage; bills calling for it have twice stalled in the senate.
And that leaves dying inmates' futures in the hands of the courts. "There could be something out there for you—whattever medicine, whatever program, whatever doctor you have to seeā€”and they ain't telling," Hammerstein complains, "because the facility don't want to go for the money."
The lawsuit alleged that prisoners throughout the New York State prison system did not get the treatment they needed. As a result, many prisoners in need of treatment were instead punished with lengthy stays in 23 hour per day lockdown (isolated confinement in SHU or keeplock), where they suffered severe psychiatric deterioration, including acts of self-mutilation and even suicide. The settlement requires that prisoners with serious mental illness confined in Special Housing Units (“SHU”) will now receive a minimum of 2 hours per day of out of cell treatment and that prisoners in the RMHU receive as many as 4 hours, in addition to an hour of recreation.
The settlement also provides:
By MICHELE MORGAN BOLTON, Staff writer
Wednesday, May 9, 2007 ALBANY -- State prison officials have agreed to allow a Muslim correction officer to wear religious headgear while on duty at a Harlem correctional facility.
The agreement, which was signed by a federal judge Friday and made public today, settles a religious discrimination lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union in October on behalf of Abdus Samad N. Haqq.
Civil libertarians said the decision makes it clear that the state will now grant other religious accommodations, as well.
At the time the federal lawsuit was filed, former state Department of Correctional Services Lucien LeClair had said he was ``vehemently opposed'' to granting any accommodations to security staff employees for reasons of religious practice.
But a pending companion lawsuit filed in March by the U.S. Department of Justice said DOCS violated a federal law requiring employers to reasonably accommodate religious practices.
Haqq, a devout Muslim, was ordered in May 2005 to remove his kufi, or a knitted scull cap, while on duty at the Lincoln Correctional Facility.
The small knitted cap is traditionally worn by Muslims as a sign of piety. Like other observant members of his faith, Haqq prays five times a day, the lawsuit said.
Although the 54-year-old complied with his supervisors' request to remove the headgear, he said it was difficult ``emotionally and spiritually.'' The settlement comes two months after the state Department of Corrections relaxed its policy on altering the uniform code of grooming.
It also follows another 2006 NYCLU lawsuit which persuaded the U.S. Coast Guard to change its rule that barred members of the Merchant Marine from wearing religious head coverings in their license photographs.
"We are particularly pleased that New York officials have recognized the need to respect the religious beliefs of Muslims,'' said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. "We hope this marks a first step toward a more tolerant attitude about freedom of religion by prison officials.''
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