Prison restraints
likened to torture
Saturday, October 14, 2006
By Pat Shellenbarger
The Grand Rapids Press
KALAMAZOO -- The use of four-point
restraints as punishment for prison inmates meets the American
Medical Association's definition of torture and should be
discontinued, a doctor appointed by a federal judge to monitor
health care in Michigan's prisons testified Friday.
The continued use of restraints is
"likely to result in future deaths," Robert Cohen warned U.S.
District Judge Richard Enslen.
He blamed the Aug. 6 death of
Timothy Joe Souders, a 21-year-old mentally ill inmate, on the fact
he was shackled atop a steel table in the Southern Michigan
Correctional Facility in Jackson for most of four days during a heat
wave.
"While naked in bed, he was found
to be lying in his own urine and feces," Cohen said, adding that
Souders' "condition during a heat wave required constant monitoring
... There should be no policy for maintaining prisoners in punitive
restraints. It was that policy that led to his death."
After Cohen's testimony, attorney
Elizabeth Alexander, representing inmates in the class action
lawsuit, asked Enslen to issue an order temporarily barring the
state Corrections Department from using restraints to punish
prisoners. Enslen appeared inclined to issue the order, but
Assistant Attorney General Peter Govorchin stepped outside the
courtroom to call state Corrections Director Patricia Caruso about
offering a voluntary moratorium on the use of restraints.
Afterward, the attorneys met with
Enslen behind closed doors, and later would not say whether an
agreement had been reached to stop restraining prisoners as
punishment.
Cohen's testimony came at the end
of a three-day hearing in a lawsuit aimed at forcing the state to
improve the care of medically and mentally ill prisoners. The
allegations include:
The hospital and other medical
units in the Jackson prison complex are understaffed by doctors and
nurses.
Written requests by inmates for
medical help often are delayed for several days or ignored.
Referrals to outside medical
specialists are routinely delayed for weeks and even months while
sick inmates get sicker and, in some case, die.
Prescriptions for serious
illnesses often go unfilled for several days.
Last May and June, critical
medications for several inmates were not provided while the Jackson
prison complex was in transition from its own staff of pharmacists
to a private firm called Pharmacorp. One inmate testified his
medication for glaucoma and migraine headaches was withheld as
punishment because he talked with attorneys in the case. Only while
he was in court and on the stand Wednesday did a guard hand him his
medication.
Some of the responsibility rests
with Correctional Medical Services, the for-profit corporation that
provides care for prisoners under a contract with the state,
testified Jerry Walden, an Ann Arbor physician called as an expert
witness for the inmates.
"There seems to be an indifference
about care," Walden said, "and I'm concerned about that."
Send e-mail to the author:
pshellenbarger@grpress.com
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