and it's already time to start prepping for the October Jail Oversight Board meeting! The meeting will be October 7th at 4pm, streamed live on Microsoft Teams. You can submit Public Comments and access the link for the meeting at the Jail Oversight Board
.
Some possible topics to write in about:
A Deadly Month at ACJ
Justin Brady, Vinckley Harris, and an as-yet unidentified 48-year-old man are the 3 most recent casualties of the Allegheny County Jail,
all in the month of September.
Justin Brady was the first cousin of
John Brady, who died at ACJ last November. John Brady's death went unreported by the County and may not have come to light at all without the indefatigable reporting of
Brittany Hailer of the
Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Indeed, we may not have learned of
Martin Bucek's death without her either.
The cause of Mr. Bucek's death has still not been released, even though he died nearly 3 months ago.
Meal Service
Incarcerated people at ACJ are
alleging starvation during the most recent COVID outbreak at the facility. Meal service for the incarcerated is provided by
unpaid incarcerated kitchen workers, and when workers are placed on lockdown due to COVID there is no one left to prepare and serve food. This is not a new issue for the facility-- last December, video of a man named Kevin Harris describing his "dinner" of warm baloney with apple sauce
went viral during another round of lockdowns at the Jail. (This is not to say that food service has ever been adequate, COVID aside).
The Controller's Office is currently auditing Summit Foods for poor food quality, just a few years after it audited
Trinity Foods, ACJ's previous food service provider. Brad Korinski of the Controller's Office also confirmed at an Oversight Board meeting several months ago that Summit was charging exorbitant prices for commissary items, in violation of its contract with the County.
Ballot Initiative Implementation
The virtues of pepper spray (or OC spray as it is known in law enforcement contexts) was an unexpected talking point at the Board's September 20th special meeting regarding Joseph Garcia and CSAU.
Former Sheriff Gary Raney, who provided expert testimony at the meeting about Joseph Garcia's training practices, took it upon himself to chastise the voters of Allegheny County for making the "drastic" decision to ban its use with the May ballot referendum. Raney insisted that OC spray is an important tool and that without it Corrections Officers at ACJ will now have no choice but to use more extreme measures to gain "compliance." His testimony against Garcia was undoubtedly key in convincing the majority of the Board to vote against the CSAU training, which makes it all the more difficult for the public to push back against his criticism of the referendum.
This is a time-sensitive issue as the Jail must have the ballot initiative fully implemented by December. The Warden has insisted ever since the initiative was passed that the Jail will be a much more dangerous place without OC spray (and solitary confinement, shackles, and restraint chairs), and even Board member Terri Klein, who often votes in the interest of the incarcerated, appeared truly shaken by Raney's comments. Klein also claimed to have spoken with a psychiatrist specializing in correctional medicine who told her that OC spray is the best tool when de-escalation fails. It's important that we remind them of the reasons that Allegheny County chose to ban it in the first place.
If you feel emotionally equipped, I encourage you to read some of the materials around Howard v. Williams, the lawsuit recently filed against the jail by the Abolitionist Law Center which alleges systemic discrimination against people with psychiatric disabilities. One element of the suit that I haven't been able to stop thinking about is the apparent regularity with which ACJ staff refuse to decontaminate incarcerated people after covering them in OC spray. Many of the plaintiffs describe being sprayed and then immediately strapped into a restraint chair for hours without being allowed to shower or change clothes.
I'm deeply skeptical that there are situations in which it is truly necessary to use OC spray to prevent far worse harm, but if there are-- surely, that potential benefit cannot outweigh the real and immediate and well-documented costs of its routine misuse.
Cell Extractions
Thanks to Joseph Garcia and CSAU, "cell extractions" have become a hot button issue at the Jail. A cell extraction is the forced removal of an incarcerated person from their cell, usually performed by approximately five COs dressed in SWAT gear. They are unambiguously horrible, violent, and dangerous. As the Warden began to catch more and more heat for his decision to contract with Garcia, he pivoted to claiming that a major reason he had chosen CSAU was because Garcia's method would allow ACJ to perform safer and more humane extractions. (This is, for any number of reasons, total bullshit).
My question though is when would the Jail ever actually "need" to perform a cell extraction? When would it ever be absolutely necessary to physically remove a person from their cell against their will? I think the Warden should have to answer that.
JOB Liaison
The Board recently passed a motion to create a new "JOB Liaison" position that will report to the Board. The Liaison will be a full-time employee responsible for investigating complaints at the Jail and monitoring conditions. I was initially skeptical of this position because it will be funded through the Incarcerated Individual's Welfare Fund and I felt that IIWF money would be best spent going directly to incarcerated people themselves; however, Board member Bethany Hallam and Solicitor Brad Korinski have each advocated strongly for the position and its necessity. Additionally there were two separate
Public Comments submitted last month which specifically encouraged the Board to proceed with the hiring.
The first of these comments was submitted by
John Kenstowicz, a licensed social worker and Official Visitor with the
PA Prison Society, which suggests that Martin Bucek's death may have been avoided if someone was monitoring conditions at ACJ. A slightly modified version of this comment was also published by the Tribune as a
Letter to the Editor.
The second comment was submitted by Jere Krakoff, a lawyer who was lead counsel on a 1978
class action lawsuit against ACJ. His comment is long so here's the gist:
"Systematic, comprehensive, and ongoing review of institutional documents, inspections, inmate interviews, and questioning staff members as well as administrators are essential to prevent conditions and practices from falling below constitutional standards....Given the reality that prison boards are comprised of officials who have other fulltime responsibilities, the necessary monitoring cannot be adequately conducted by board members; it requires (in an institution as large as the Allegheny County Jail) a full‐time auditor.
So while a jail auditor is not, strictly speaking,
a step towards abolition I hope it will shine a light on the routine cruelty of ACJ and help improve conditions for people inside. Judge Clark has appeared resistant to moving forward with the position recently due to some initial public concern about the position's funding, so you may want to consider writing in as a member of the public to show support for the position.
Comments
Post a Comment