Increase in prison suicides blamed on understaffing, poor health care
Associated
Press
March 7 2005
MILFORD, Conn. -- The state correction
officers' union says understaffing and poor mental health care contributed to an
increase in prisoner suicides last year.
"You have a generalized staff
shortage that's quite serious and, on top of that, you have a crisis on how the
mental health issues are handled," said Wayne Meyers, president of Local 1565 of
the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents
2,500 state prison guards.
According to state Correction Department
reports on seven inmate suicides last year, the agency determined that guards
falsified log books at least two times, responded slowly to some suicide
attempts and, according to prisoners, were grossly indifferent to human life in
some cases. The reports were obtained by the New Haven Register through the
state Freedom of Information Act.
There were nine inmate suicides in
state prisons last year, compared with an average of three to five suicides
annually in previous years.
In one case, the Correction Department
overruled a judge's decision to place a Milford man on suicide watch,
considering the ruling only a recommendation. The man hanged himself two days
later in the Bridgeport Correctional Center.
Meyers claims that there is
only "minimal" mental health care for prisoners, and that there is only a
cursory screening of inmates for suicide risks and other problems when they are
admitted.
Many correction officers are being ordered to work for more
than 16 hours a day, two to five days in a row, Meyers said.
"Thats been
a big problem," He said. "On the medical side, they continue to cut medical
staff statewide at the facilities."
Short-staffing has led to conditions
in which one guard is responsible for 100 "extremely needy inmates," Meyers
said.
The Correction Department strongly denies the allegations, saying
there is no staffing problem and mental health care is appropriate.
"The
Connecticut Department of Correction is not understaffed in either its custody
or medical/mental health ranks," agency spokesman Brian Garnett said in a
prepared statement. "Staffing was not an issue with regard to the suicides that
were experienced in 2004."
Meyers said the union is suing on behalf of
two correction officers, Carroll Rainey in New Haven and Raphael Gayle in
Bridgeport, who were dismissed as a result of inmate suicides, contending the
department places unrealistic requirements on them given current staffing
levels.
Rainey and Gayle were dismissed for failing to conduct cell block
tours as frequently as required. They were likely attending to other duties or
emergencies, Meyers said.
Rich Harris, a spokesman for Gov. M. Jodi Rell,
said the governor considers the staffing level and medical and mental health
care at state prison facilities adequate.
