Arizona informs DOJ they have no plans to comply with federal Prison Rape Elimination Act

Arizona was recently among one of a handful of states in the country to inform the US Department of Justice that they have no plans of complying with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act. This is my rebuttal of Jan Brewer's assertion that Arizona is already doing such a swell job running its prisons that they need no federal mandates to protect their prisoners from rape and other violence. (EDITED June 26, 2014)

Margaret Jean Plews
ARIZONAPRISONWATCH.ORG
PO Box 20494
Phoenix, AZ 85036

June 7, 2014

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General, US Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder;

I am writing to provide a citizen’s rebuttal of Governor Jan Brewer’s statements of May 1, 2014 in her letter to you regarding the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which grossly misrepresented conditions in the state prison system during her reign. I am also intending this letter to serve as a formal request for a CRIPA Investigation into the pervasive patterns and practices at the Arizona Department of Corrections that place prisoners at exceptionally high risk for sexual victimization and complications from unresolved trauma, especially women, the mentally and otherwise-impaired, and LGBT prisoners.

I am emailing this letter with relevant links embedded, but will also be snail- mailing a copy to you with supporting documents (as well as some of my artwork, memorializing the ghosts of Jan Brewer and Chuck Ryan).

By way of introduction, I am the author/editor of the blog ARIZONAPRISONWATCH.ORG, which I began writing five years ago after the death of prisoner Marcia Powell revealed disturbing practices and attitudes at the Arizona Department of Corrections. My particular concern was the mentally ill women at ASPC-Perryville, at first. I recognized in Marcia’s life story the same elements of the numerous women I had come to know and love in my many years working with people who were trying to survive while homeless, addicted and severely mentally ill in Ann Arbor. I also identified with her - I myself am a recovering alcoholic and addict, and could have landed in prison under draconian drug war and repeat-offender sentencing had I been caught at any number of things earlier in my life, especially if it was in Arizona (what but a “repeat offender” is an addict, anyway?). I also have bi-polar disorder and a bad attitude when it comes to authority, and could have easily been in Marcia’s cage that day myself.

If you are unfamiliar with the case, Marcia was doing 27 months for a $20 blow job she agreed to give an undercover Phoenix cop one fateful day, and died in a cage in the Arizona sun in May of 2009, at ASPC-Perryville. That was after an extended “suicide watch” in the 107 degree heat, during which time a prisoner is supposed to be checked on every 10 minutes. After ignoring Marcia’s pleas for relief for four hours (one guard walked away offering no aid knowing she had even defecated on herself) - officers eventually noticed she had collapsed from the elements with second degree burns on her body and her organs failing; her core temperature at the hospital still exceeded the ability of thermometers to read it, which only went as high as 108 degrees. Not realizing she had a legal guardian and an adoptive mother, Ryan pulled the plug on her life support before the stroke of midnight - she died shortly thereafter.

DOC officers never expected that Marcia Powell would die out there because they had just left another woman in that cage for 20 hours 3 days earlier, and she didn’t die. See, Marcia’s death was horrific, but it’s not really shocking that it happened - the only wonder was that the DOC got away with punishing prisoners in the heat that way for so long.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/09/1305683/-Arizona-prisoners-and-activists-call-for-DOJ-Investigation-into-rape-and-gang-violence-in-AZ-DOC

By cage this is what they mean though don't know if this is just the one cage or Perrville has different yards or units but this picture 1st degree murder convicts (Jodi Arias) and death row inmates have cells here.



I think there is a fence that separates them where the someone goes in there alone for rec but could still have someone next to her but seperated by the chain link. Basically a life of going from the cell to either a phone or the cage do some rec and go back to the cell. Don't what the official hours but it seems they have a problem with not letting them come back from cruel. Arizona private prisons conditions are poor & very dangerous especially the Morey unit in Phoenix or Buckeye.

This is F'd up

Arizona prison horror: “Critically ill” inmates told to “pray” for healing

“To say that I’m terrified would be an understatement. But I simply do not know what to do," one inmate writes

A new report alleges illegal and deadly mistreatment of Arizona inmates whose medical care the state contracted out to the country’s largest private prison health care provider.

The report, released last week by the American Friends Service Committee, a progressive Quaker group, comes as an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against the Arizona Department of Corrections awaits an appeals court ruling over the state’s challenge to its class action status. The ACLU alleges “grossly inadequate” care that creates “grave danger” for inmates, including “critically ill” people who were told to “be patient” or “pray” for healing, or that “it’s all in your head.”

Shortly before that lawsuit was filed in March 2013, the state contracted with its current for-profit health provider, Corizon, to replace the departed company Wexford. But the AFSC charges that “Correspondence from prisoners; analysis of medical records, autopsy reports, and investigations; and interviews with anonymous prison staff and outside experts indicate that, if anything, things have gotten worse.” Among the allegations: “delays and denials of care, lack of timely emergency treatment, failure to provide medication and medical devices, low staffing levels, failure to provide care and protection from infectious disease, denial of specialty care and referrals, and insufficient health treatment…”

Asked about the report, Corizon sent a statement saying that since March, it has “increased the number and skill level of our healthcare staff with the goal of continually improving patient outcomes.” Corizon said that its facilities are accredited and subject to internal audits, and that “ADC inmate patients receive care that meets their healthcare needs and satisfies constitutional requirements.” It added that “As with any large healthcare provider, litigation does arise from time to time. However, the vast majority of lawsuits filed against Corizon are without merit and are dismissed or settled with no findings of wrongdoing.” The Arizona Governor’s office did not immediately respond to an early morning Wednesday inquiry.

In 2011 and 2012, the deaths of thirty-seven total inmates were reported in the Arizona Republic. In contrast, writes the AFSC, fifty people have died in custody in the first two-thirds of this year. Last year, the Arizona Republic charged that “Arizona’s prison system has two death rows”: Those “officially sentenced to death” and those who “die as victims of prison violence, neglect and mistreatment.”

The AFSC report includes a series of case studies drawn from media reports and individuals’ accounts. The Arizona Capitol Times reported that a death-row inmate was diagnosed with throat cancer, “but his disease went unknown to him and untreated for seven more months.” A prisoner’s mother, a registered nurse, told AFSC that her son had lost his visitation and phone privileges for alleged “refusal” to provide urine for drug-testing, when the real and well-documented issue was his diagnosed post-chemotherapy bladder conditions. Staff at Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital recorded that a patient who had been discharged back to the Tucson complex “was supposed to follow up [with] pathology and receive a PET scan; unfortunately none of that workup was done at this time. The patients says that he request [nut] no oncology consults ever been performed at this time either…it is felt that the patient does have cancerous etiology and does need to receive further workup.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/14/arizona_horror_show_after_illegal_mistreatment_inmates_in_grave_danger/

On edit - pasted wrong headline