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Another Hunger Strike and Appeal from the County Jail

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Another Hunger Strike and Appeal from the County Jail

Families Demand: Feed our Loved Ones

 

Once again persons incarcerated in the Broome county jail have gone on a hunger strike, this week sending back meal after meal to the kitchen. Their appeal and actions add to years of reports of ill-fed, starving and brutalized people inside the jail. Families call, ask for help, demand action.  Why no fruit ever? Why so little food? Why so much hunger? This is a food desert by design, filled, funded and authorized by the county and its elected officials.

 

None of this is new. Over five years ago JUST wrote county legislators warning them that outsourcing food services to private, for-profit corporations courted disaster. Op-eds in the local press did the same. Yet, the county legislature choose the Trinity Service Group, a company with a well-known history of providing low-quality meals, in insufficient quantities, and often featuring bugs. In Trinity facilities incarcerated people were reduced to eating toothpaste and syrup packets. Ultimately, the food was so terrible, and people so hungry, incarcerated people rebelled in several states.  And then this came home to the Broome.

 

The single most common complaint from people inside is the food. Fruit, fresh vegetables, and eggs are unheard of in the jail. One guard told a person incarcerated in BCJ, “I wouldn’t eat this S*** on your [food] tray if they paid me a whole year’s salary”. Folks have found metal, rocks, sticks, and maggots in their daily meals. Even worse, there’s not enough of it. One incarcerated person reports, “Our food is below minimum calorie count.” Visitors watch as their loved ones lose pounds a week on the jail diet. For pregnant women it’s even worse. Food is also used as punishment.  In one instance, milk and a cheese sandwich were purposely served to a disabled Black youth who was lactose intolerant. When he and other youth inside protested the youth put in a mechanical restraint chair, tear gassed, then left naked in a jail cell.  The Sheriff and county were sued and lost.

 

Meanwhile Trinity lives on and profits, while the county celebrates it can feed so many persons on so little money. Starving incarcerated people is good money for the Sheriff too. Pouring through the jail commissary list, JUST members found the sheriff overcharging for a packet of ramen by 560%. Kit kat bars and grape jelly were three times more expensive. The State Commission of Correction regulations require “modest” profits to be spent on rehabilitation; the sheriff uses super-profits to buy lawn mower, flares, copier supplies, and basic supplies.

 

Despite all these warnings, protests, and lawsuits the Sheriff’s Office and the Broome County Legislature have consistently been silent, refused to act.  This torturous situation must end.

 

We endorse the demands of persons in the jail and their families for:

  • Fruit and vegetables–including salads– provided daily
  • Fruit juice and eggs regularly served
  • Populations with special diets should have meals consistent with their requirements. People with diabetes should have adequate food to keep on hand between meals.Pregnant women should be provided additional servings, for example.

 

The County Executive and County Legislators need go farther, and use their legal and financial power to

  • Start regular unannounced county inspections of kitchen hygiene with public reports (as done for restaurant kitchens)
  • Direct the County Health Department to supervise nutrition and jail diets with public reports
  • Terminate food service by for-profit corporations, and return to a county-run kitchen
  • End profiteering on commissary items and audit commissary accounts as required by law
  • Use modest profits from commissary on actual rehabilitation services

Long-term, we need an independent oversight board whose powers include the responsibility to approve menus, require changes, and inspect meals.

 

JUST wins; Sheriff Harder Loses

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The Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court today rejected Broome County Sheriff Harder’s continued attempt to stop in-person visitation despite court rulings.  The court decision, attached, dictates in-person visitation to begin again on September 29th.  JUST members and many friends and family members of those incarcerated will be there, celebrating.  JUST will be greeting family with coffee, cake and banners on the day.

 

We trust the County Executive and Legislators will abandon funding any more attempts to defend the Sheriff’s brutalities. This lawsuit saga is a testimony to how the Sheriff and the County have increasingly resisted basic human rights for those under their control. Harder and the County have now lost a series of wrongful death lawsuits and state investigations. More lawsuits are pending, from the Husar family’s $5 million wrongful death lawsuit, to Legal Services lawsuit on the brutal beating of a Black/Latino youth, to a suit filed by a trans women on her abuse in the jail.

 

It is time to put an end to these injustices, open up the jail, and let more people await trial at home where they belong.  We look forward to more success, more justice, in the coming days. Above all, we celebrate the ability to visit loved ones in the jail.

 

Press Contacts: Jackson Hengsterman 518-779-5899, Ella Friday 702-742-3290, William Martin 917 340 0468

Emails: jhengsterman@gmail.com, ellamfriday@gmail.com,  wgmartin1@gmail.com

Banned Visits, Beatings, and Bearcats!?

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by Ruth Blizard

How do the Sheriff’s refusal to resume in-person visitation along with for-profit inmate phone calls enable him to buy military vehicles without dipping into the Broome County budget?

Banned in-person visitation: Sheriff Harder has refused to restart face-to-face visits, now that pandemic restrictions have been lowered, despite the fact that prisons and county jails across the state have done the same. In support of families desperate to remain in contact with loved ones locked behind closed doors, Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier and families of the incarcerated have filed a lawsuit with the assistance of Legal Services of Central NY demanding a return to family visits.

For-profit phone calls: Out of sight and unmonitored, the Sheriff reaps huge profits from running a monopoly telephone and video exchange for those incarcerated in the jail. A 15 minute call, costing only 65 cents from a state prison, can cost $3.75 to $9.95 from the Broome jail. The Sheriff skims off 44% of revenues from all telephone calls and 20% of all video tablet use. Profits in 2020 came to $373,000, and as COVID continued, rose to $655,000 in 2021. A freedom-of-information request was necessary to get this information.

Bearcats: No, we’re not talking about the BU mascot. This is a surplus military vehicle, an armored personnel carrier, most often used to carry SWAT teams into action or to counter civil protest. You may wonder why we need one in Broome County. Well, now we have two. The first local BearCat was obtained in 2019 by the Binghamton Police Department and introduced with celebration by the Republican Mayor, the Democratic County Executive, and our Republican State Senator. Over five years earlier, the Broome County Sheriff got himself an armored personnel carrier, a surplus apartheid war machine, a South African Casspir. Not to be outdone by the city, Sheriff Harder has apparently retired the Casspir and purchased his own BearCat for his own SWAT team – at the cost of $273,000. More detail at https://bit.ly/3LWnZLC.

Beatings: How does the Sheriff maintain a wall of secrecy about what’s going on in the jail? Inmates are afraid to speak out or file grievances for fear of retribution in the form of severe beatings. Only costly, and thus rare, lawsuits bring cases of abuse to light, as shown by the county losing its own record of successive wrongful death and physical, medical, and disability abuse cases. http://www.justtalk.blog/index.php/2022/03/26/got-a-grievance-about-abuse-today-tomorrow-ever-not-in-the-bc-jail-you-dont/

Cases related to the abuse of youth are particularly grievous, as in the 2018 case the Sheriff and County lost. As one expert witness testified,

“All the juveniles spoke of the harsh and abusive practices [of] the Correctional Officers (COs) with many identifying in exquisite detail the beatings they endured at the hands of the COs’…. [a] youth spoke of … [being] pepper sprayed while he was restrained. Still another youth spoke of the COs carrying batons they used to beat the kids; they reported that the COs refer to the baton as their “n-word [sic] beaters.”

http://www.justtalk.blog/index.php/2021/08/30/i-cant-breathe-in-the-broome-county-jail/.

This pattern repeats itself. Further lawsuits have been filed on behalf of another young man revealing brutal, racial abuse in the jail; abuse of trans women; and a new $5 million wrongful death case.

Harder’s final solution is simple. When he gets freedom-of-information requests that might uncover repeated beatings by identifiable officers, official discipline of officers for sexual relations with the incarcerated, or firings for drinking on the job, he just checks the box, “Record is not maintained by this Agency.”

Connecting the dots: Why are our elected leaders, Republican and Democrat, so eager to support our Sheriff? Is it because he’s making a profit on needed commodities at the jail, and thus benefiting the county budgets? Is that why he continues the ban on in-person visitation, when other counties don’t, so there’s more need for profitable phone calls? Or does it just make it easier to maintain the veil of secrecy around the jail? Can anyone answer why the Sheriff needs a BearCat?

Got an abuse grievance? Not in the BC jail

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by Bill Martin March 20, 2022

Got a grievance about abuse today? Tomorrow? Ever? Not in the BC jail you don’t!

picture of protesters

Women’s Testimonies on Abuse January 20, 2022 Photo Credit: Bill Martin

Friends and family of persons incarcerated in the Broome County jail regularly hear disturbing accounts of physical, disability, and medical abuse. The official county, state, and legal recourse for incarcerated persons is for them to file a grievance. That has proven very difficult. Often persons report they are denied a grievance slip, which eliminates a paper trail for any later legal action, and if they manage to file a grievance, it is denied by jail authorities. Reports of retribution for filing grievances are common. In 2019 Judy Arnold detailed the impossibilities of filing grievances in an article in the community newspaper the Binghamton Bridge. More recent lawsuits, evidence, and public testimonies amplify the charge of an unaccountable system of abuse.

There’s no problem: witness the 99.7% rejection rate

The state oversight body for the jail and grievances is the State Commission of Correction (SCOC). It has a “Citizens’ Policy and Complaint Review Council” which evaluates grievances from county jails. Few grievances from Broome County seem to be considered: a check of reports for the last six months show no grievances made it to Albany from Broome County at all.

And statewide? Below is a table of spot checks of recent SCOC annual reports and spot checks of monthly reports. As you can see, the rejection rate of county jail grievances that make it to the SCOC has risen from the already remarkable rate of 95% to 99% currently.

Date Grievances accepted Grievances accepted in part Denied Percent Denied
2019 annual 4 21 3829 98%
2020 annual 1 47 3620 99%
Feb 2022 0 1 131 99.7%

 

Mandated SCOC inspection reports of the BC jail obtained by freedom-of-information requests do however reveal that grievance and disciplinary procedures in Broome County are riddled with irregularities in violation of state regulations. A 2016 review shows for example that reviews of grievance records and records of the use of force and chemical agents were incomplete, inconsistent with investigations, and lacked interviews (SCOC, March 2016, pp. 3, 5, 6).

Nor were many violent events reported. The inspection team found for example that reportable incidents (injury, death, emergency, disturbance) and discipline reports demonstrated that “staff are not consistently documenting significant events that occur,” and a “review of discipline hearing documentation indicated that hearing officers are not consistently documenting the evidence relied upon to reach a finding and how that evidence supports the finding” (SCOC, March 2016, pp. 3, 4)

Other state authorities report these failures at the level of the SCOC itself. Writing in anticipation of a lawsuit filed against the jail, the local Press and Sun-Bulletin newspaper reported the following on a NYS comptroller investigation:

“Though it received thousands of inmate grievances between 2014 and 2016, the state Commission of Correction (SCOC) didn’t analyze or track the grievances, and as a result, wasn’t able to identify trends at certain facilities or throughout the system, the audit says.

The commission’s new grievance software system can’t produce reports showing resolution of complaints and grievances, or how long it took for them to be resolved. It also can’t track individual complaints or grievances between the time they’re received by the commission and the time they’re resolved.”

The result? Only costly and thus rare lawsuits bring cases of abuse to light, as shown by the county losing its own record of successive wrongful death and physical, medical, and disability abuse cases. Cases related to the abuse of youth are particularly grievous, as in the 2018 case the Sheriff and County lost. As one expert witness testified,

“All the juveniles spoke of the harsh and abusive practices [of] the Correctional Officers (COs) with many identifying in exquisite detail the beatings they endured at the hands of the COs’…. [a] youth spoke of an incident in which he was restrained in a restraint chair and then pepper sprayed while he was restrained. Still another youth spoke of the COs carrying batons they used to beat the kids; they reported that the COs refer to the baton as their “n-word  [sic] beaters.”

This pattern repeats itself. Last year another lawsuit was filed on behalf of another young man revealing the continuation of brutal and racial abuse in the jail, while a new $5 million wrongful death lawsuit was filed.

The inescapable conclusion: local oversight and reforms to the SCOC? They have failed us.

Disciplinary Records Reform to the Rescue? Rolling the 50-a statute back and forth

Might other avenues and records assist in responding to pleas from the hidden corners of the Broome County Jail?

In June 2020 the State Legislature, under pressure from several years of public protest over police misconduct and endangered Black lives, repealed the 50-a statute that shielded police disciplinary records from any public scrutiny. The repeal also opened up records on correctional officers in county jails.

Sheriffs, police chiefs, and officers’ unions immediately deployed, as reported in local media, an array of strategies to delay and forestall opening any records on officers’ misconduct. By late 2021 however they the largely lost the legal battle. USA Today then launched an effort to construct a statewide database through FOIL requests—but ran aground as requests were rejected, leading to lawsuits targeted county by county. Broome County was not one they chose to sue.

picture of Sheriff Harder

Sheriffs’ Joint News Conference vs. 50a repeal July 15 2020

As elsewhere, the Broome Sheriff and County vigorously stymied all FOIL requests for disciplinary records. In media events the Sheriff, supported by a phalanx of Sheriffs from surrounding counties, proudly stated he doesn’t have time to compile the records and will not do so. Said Harder, “50-a? what a ridiculous thing that is… we don’t have time to do this stuff for people who are just nosey…

 

Harder’s final solution is simple: he denies there are any records that might cover any of the numerous allegations of abuse, including charges of the official discipline and demotion of officers for sexual relations with the incarcerated, repeated beatings by several handfuls of identifiable officers, firings for drinking on the job, and so on. His and the county’s response to freedom-of-information requests on general or individual disciplinary records is simple: no such records exists.

 

More than the abuse of the incarcerated is involved. Might disciplinary records of past as well as current officers come to light—most notably the current State Senator and former Broome County undersheriff Frederick Akshar? As widely reported in the press, he was involved in the investigation of a 2009 crash where his then girlfriend and Sheriff’s Deputy, Kathleen Newcomb, intervened on behalf of her “highly intoxicated” nephew. Reports by the County District Attorney were turned over to the Sheriff’s office at the conclusion of the investigation. Senator Akshar is currently running for County Sheriff in the next election as a Republican, while his Democratic opponent is Captain Newcomb.

 Hochul joins Harder

It gets worse. This week at Governor Hochul’s behest a repeal of the 50-a reform is being proposed. It would allow police and sheriff agencies to deny access to records if they, rather than a judge, declare the officers are involved in ongoing investigations. The record of the police policing themselves is dubious. More realistically, Broome County has repeatedly used the rationale of an “ongoing investigation” to deny access to official records. That Hochul and others present this change as a ‘minor technical correction’ is not just shameful, it’s fantastical.

Take for example FOIL requests for records of deaths in the jail: access to records on years-old deaths have been denied, and justified by an “ongoing investigation.”

Similarly, as the local press has reported, state mandated reports on the jail’s private medical care provider, Correction Medical Care, were withheld in 2017 due to the Attorney General claiming that the disclosure would “interfere with law enforcement investigations or judicial proceedings.” This occurred despite the fact that these reports were required as a condition of the state’s 2014 settlement with CMC for medical malfeasance.

As Hochul’s changes go forward this month, supported by both Republicans and Democrats, all sheriff and police agencies need do is to claim “ongoing investigations.”

Looking Forward

There is only one conclusion. We cannot rely upon the County, the SCOC, or the Governor’s office to protect individuals made invisible in county jails. Their actions to date have served to cover up inhuman conditions, injury and death.

We need an independent investigation of the Broome County Jail and an independent oversight board.

_______________

Bill Martin is a founding member of Justice and the Unity for the Southern Tier, and Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Binghamton. They blog at:  www.justtalk.blog

 

 

What do you know about the Broome Co Jail?

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The Jan 19 Press and Sun Bulletin article about failure of the NYS Commission of Correction’s response to inmate grievances is barely the tip of the iceberg.  The public response to those they deem with multiple stigmas – inmate, mentally ill, and triple diagnosed developmentally impaired is to continually ignore or cut and reduce from services.  Several recent governors have ignored local needs, most recently in 2014 when the Broome County Mental Health Clinic was closed to a thousand recipients resulting in continuing waiting lists for services and denial of service especially to the DD/MI population.  No one rushed in with funding. 

Broome County decided it did not want to pay the salaries and pensions for quality mental health workers.   Remember, it is state and federal funding that provides the majority of these mental health services for the public residents.   Instead Broome County follows the mantra of the radical right to only fund police and the military by hiring a dozen correctional officers.

175 years later, Dorothea Dix would be aghast to know that the mentally ill are still being “caged” (in solitary), beaten and neglected” in our local jails.  It is a tragedy that Broome County does not have the integrity to have an independent criminal justice oversight committee.  Too many employees fear standing up for clients.  You are not aware that some inmates have waited a week to receive the grievance form they want to file.  How does that impact the “24 Hour Reports” the Comptroller recommends?  Over seventy percent of inmates are too poor to pay bail, therefore serving time before conviction.
Has the community kept up with best practices by contracting out to Correctional Medical Care at the jail?  No.   There have been several deaths at the jail.  There are many reports of inhumane medical neglect.

It is the same Broome County legislators who in 2014, and a few months ago, wanted to deny the new detox facility to their neighbors.   Five years ago if you wanted suboxone you had to go to Ithaca.  Will funding for treatment follow?  Or will they continue to cry Not MY Taxes.  Why does the local press refuse to print this information.  Who is willing to make government work for the people instead of the monthly assault that all government is totalitarianism.

Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier (J.U.S.T.) is dedicated to dismantling mass incarceration in the Southern Tier. The diverse, social conditions and institutions contributing to mass incarceration demand a multifaceted effort to devise its end. Championing community mobilizations, supports, and services to end poverty, racism, the criminalization of the differently-abled, and the school-to-prison pipeline, J.U.S.T. believes that rehabilitation, education, and persistent community engagement is the best way to bring about true change. J.U.S.T advocates with and for individuals, families and loved ones of those currently or previously incarcerated, as well as educates community members, police, schools and other community service providers about the harms of mass incarceration. We welcome all who are interested in creating a JUST community in the Southern Tier. (website www.justiceST.com)

 

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