Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

After constant problems in New York’s youth prisons, the Department of Justice threatened to take over the state juvenile system.  The state of New York and the Justice came to a compromise, putting four of the youth problems under federal supervision.

A settlement agreement was filed in U.S. District Court, formalizing the agreement between federal and state officials.  The federal inquiry began in 2007 after a number of incidents, including the death of an emotionally disturbed 15-year old in 2006.  The problems in New York facilities might be even worse than those attacked in a lawsuit pending in federal court against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.

The settlement will place four of New York’s most dangerous prisons under strict federal control.  There will be tight limits on the use of physical force by guards.  Also dozens of psychiatrists, counselors, and investigators will be hired for the juvenile facilities.

The majority of the juveniles in custody have drug or alcohol problems, developmental disabilities, or other mental health problems, yet the state did not have even one full-time psychiatrist on the staff.  Henceforth, guards, known as youth counselors, will be not be allowed to use physical force on those in custody except in cases of escape or in cases of danger to a person’s physical safety.

On occasion guards force a youth face down to the ground.  This is a controversial method, and the guards will be allowed to use it only for three minutes with evaluation by a doctor within four hours on each occasion.

The Justice Department insisted the state take significant steps to fix the problems in the system so bad many inmates never receive any treatment or services that would help them adust to life out of custody.  The Department of Justice threatened to take over the entire state juvenile justice system unless the state did so.

The four facilities placed under federal supervision are the Lansing Residential Center and the Louis Gossett Jr. Residential Center in Lansing and two residences at Tyron Residential Center in Johnstown, New York.  Federal investigators had found that the staff routinely used physical force to discipline the youth at that the four facilities.  The force resulted in broken bones, shattered teeth, concussions and dozens of other serious injuries over a two-year period.

Governor Peterson had been trying to fix the problems in the system.  He introduced a bill last month that would allow a judge to sentence juveniles to the youth prisons only if the juveniles had been found guilty of a violent crime or a sex crime or were otherwise found to be a serious danger to themselves or to others.

The federal oversight plan will include two monitors jointly chosen by federal and state officials who will watch the implementation of the plan.  The monitors will make regular reports over the next two years to a federal judge, who then must approve the settlement before it goes into effect.  Funding for the improvements was included in the state budget just approved.  Those improvements include one full-time psychiatrist at each of the four facilities, five licensed psychologists and about a dozen nurse practitioners and social workers.

The changes in the settlement are similar to the suggestions made in the recommendations made by a state task force, which found recommended expanding mental health care and replacing most of the residential youth prisons with a system of smaller centers closer to where the incarcerated youths live.

An inmate in the Oklahoma County Jail has a good chance of dying.  In 2006, the Oklahoma County jail had a mortality rate higher per 100,000 inmates than Los Angeles County Jail, Cook County Illinois, among many others.  Three inmates have died there this year.  Fourteen inmates died in the jail in 2007 and 2008.

The U.S. Justice Department keeps track of the facilities with which it does business, including the business of housing federal inmates.  There is no federal jail in Oklahoma City, so the Justice Department contracted to place its inmates in the Oklahoma County Jail.  Until last year, that is, when a D.O.J.  report found so many serious deficiencies that the federal inmates were all moved out.  They were sent to the Grady County Jail, which was very happy to be paid the higher per-prisoner rate.

The D.O.J. report found high instances of violence between detainees, lax supervision of inmates, poor suicide prevention, and poor health care.  Any local criminal defense attorney can verify especially the latter: poor health care. Whenever one of my clients with a medical condition has to spend any time in the jail, either pretrial or post-trial, I cringe.  The greater the medical needs of an inmate, the less likely those needs will be met.  Send all the letters you want, communicate on a daily basis with the authorities as needed, it still may not be enough to get the attention of the medical personnel to get the right medication or treatment as needed.

The jail’s spin on all this?  “…[A] natural death is a part of life,” Mark Myers, spokesman of the Oklahoma County sheriff’s office said.  He said this year’s deaths have been from natural causes.  He said the “majority” of deaths from the previous two years have also been from natural causes.  He further said the jail calculates that .01 percent of the 44,000 inmates who come to the jail annually will die while in custody.  Many inmates are in poor health when they come to the jail, he correctly points out.  If it weren’t for the federal government’s study, such a statistical approach might make you think all those deaths were just statistical inevitable.  Are the inmates in Los Angeles or Chicago just that much healthier?

Jail administrator Major Jack Herron said a new company is overseeing the jail’s health care now, and about 10 additional staff and a full-time physician have been added in the last few months for inmate’s health.

My suggestion is that one check back in a year, and one will notice the same problems, and one will hear the same responses from the jail, something like, “we just added a new wing to really improve things, and we just gave most of the walls a nice new coat of pain, etc., etc.” This has been going on for years, so every time the latest study comes out, sudden improvements are announced just in time to respond to the latest criticisms.  Then things return to normal.

In May, 2007, Christopher Beckman died after a struggle with jail guards.  Two Oklahoma County jail guards, Mark Isch and Gavin Littlejohn, were indicted in February for that death.

The three who died this year did, indeed, die of natural causes.  The medical examiner made that determination, not the jail.