An Arizona inmate who suffered from mental illness was pepper sprayed more than 40 times over an eight-month period. Sometimes the cops would shut him down twice in one day.
Another inmate told the court that he was encouraged by prison officials to self-harm.
A young woman who once enjoyed playing basketball now lies nearly paralyzed in a prison infirmary after medical staff failed to diagnose her with multiple sclerosis for years.
A trial that brought out these and other shocking statements led U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver to rule Thursday that health care in Arizona prisons is so poor it violates inmates’ constitutional rights.
The verdict was the result of a three-week trial held in the fall of 2021 after Silver overturned a settlement agreement in a long-running lawsuit against the state in prison health care.
At trial, attorneys representing people in state prisons presented evidence that Arizona provided substandard health care that resulted in unnecessary suffering and preventable deaths.
“Defendants have failed to provide, and continue to refuse to provide, a constitutionally adequate medical and mental health care system for all inmates,” Silver wrote, calling the health care system “manifestly grossly inadequate.”
Silver’s findings weren’t news to people like Suzanne McMillan, whose incarcerated son struggled to get proper health care at the Yuma prison. But the order gave McMillan a sense of validation.
“The inmates know what it’s like there. The families know how bad it is. I know what it’s like,” McMillan said. “I am elated that the public will now see where their tax dollars are going. I am personally ashamed that my taxes are funding this kind of negligence.”
McMillan said the problems start at intake, where she says medical staff are not making the correct diagnoses for newly arrived inmates.
“They’re just being herded through like cattle,” she said, “and nobody’s really being evaluated.”
McMillan said she hopes whatever system the court puts in place that incarcerated people will finally get proper care. “Because we allow these people to fall deeper and deeper into mental and physical illness while they’re incarcerated and then eventually they’re released back onto the street.”
‘I chose to stand up for them knowing the consequences’
Dustin Brislan, the named plaintiff in the lawsuit who is incarcerated at the Eyman prison complex in Florence, called the verdict a “huge victory” after “so much unnecessary suffering. To see also : Ten small lifestyle changes to improve your health.”
Brislan testified at trial about his experiences with mental health care in Arizona prisons despite fearing retribution.
He told the court that he was taunted by prison officers and encouraged to self-harm.
“The officers are actually encouraging me to cut myself,” he told the court during the trial. “They say they want to see how bad they can get.”
In an email sent Friday, Brislan said he decided to be the named plaintiff in the lawsuit “because the inmates needed a voice.”
“Prisoners are not taught how to stand up for their rights, nor to stand up for themselves,” he said. “I decided to stand up for them knowing the consequences.”
As a result of the ruling, Brislan said he would like the state to take control of health care services from private contractors, and for mental health programs to expand.
“I would like to see more mental health workers,” Brislan said, “as well as less restrictions on mental health medications and more therapy offered.”
During the trial, Brislan and other inmates testified that prison officials often used pepper spray and pepper balls on people in Arizona prisons who had mental illnesses.
Brislan said they used several cans of pepper spray, which he called “foggers,” while he was in the suicide observation cell.
According to custody and medical records presented during the trial, prison officials pepper-sprayed one inmate, Rahim Muhammad, more than 40 times over eight months from December 2020 to July 2021. In one two-week period, Muhammad was pepper-sprayed 15 times. Sometimes the police shut it down twice a day. Another time, prison security shot him at point blank range with a pepper gun.
Brislan said all prison staff working in mental health programs and in mental health homes should be equipped with body cameras. “And I would like to see pepper guns no longer used on mentally ill prisoners,” he said.
‘Abhorrent systemic failure’: Advocate points to privatization of prison services
John Fabricius spent 15 years in prisons in Arizona. On the same subject : FACT SHEET: Health Department leaders join Biden Administration’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030. He is now a digital campaign manager at Dream Corps Justice and an advocate for prison oversight through the nonprofit he founded, Arizonans for Transparency and Accountability in Corrections.
“I am deeply pleased that the United States District Court found that Director David Shinn and the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry were willfully indifferent to the care of the human beings we placed in their custody,” Fabricius said. “For more than a decade since the Arizona Legislature mandated the privatization of health care, the willful acts and omissions of current and past ADCRR administrations have consistently ignored the corruption and inhumanity present in our prison system.”
Fabricius said he lays much of the blame for unconstitutional prison conditions on the privatized model of prison health care.
“Arizona’s political leadership’s relentless desire to create corporate profits — at the expense of the health and lives of our most marginalized and isolated members of society — underpins the abject systemic failure at ADCRR,” he said. “These policies have led to untold suffering, needless pain and death to the citizens of Arizona. Moreover, it has cost Arizona taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars with net negative results.”
After Silver’s sentencing, Fabricius said he thought about the people he grew close to while living in the Arizona prison system for more than a decade.
“I think about my friend Gary who went blind because the Arizona Department of Corrections and their privatized medical providers refused to provide him with timely treatment for a detached retina,” Fabricius said. “I think about my friend Bruce, a Vietnam veteran who endured years of incredible misery at ADCRR because they refused to treat him and then misdiagnosed him. I think of hundreds of similar cases where people I know have suffered needlessly, painfully and hopelessly. Today I think about my friends who did not survive the system.”
Fabricius said seeing these tragic experiences led him to his current work as an advocate for other directly affected individuals.
Designated prosecutor Shawn Jensen has been incarcerated in Arizona prisons for nearly 50 years. When told of Silver’s verdict by email Thursday night, Jensen said he was “very happy.”
“It was a long, painstaking effort that required measures of determination and resilience,” Jensen said of the health care lawsuit.
“Meaningful medical care should not be shrouded in ambiguity, let alone often indifference,” Jensen said. “The approach here is at times both absurd and ridiculous, because of the often knee-jerk reaction to simply handing out Tylenol or something.
“I’ve known and seen many who deteriorated and later died, unnecessarily,” Jensen said. “It would be absurd or irresponsible for me not to be here on their behalf.”
Of his and others’ struggles to get treatment for life-threatening conditions like cancer, Jensen said, “Prisoners in general either get worse, like I did, or some just don’t survive.”
Jensen blames the privatization of prison health care for the unconstitutional conditions that exist today.
Speaking about the history of private correctional health care operators in Arizona, Jensen said, “Wexford, Corizon, and now Centurion, they all have a vested interest in not diagnosing, not treating, not sending anyone to the hospital. By doing that, they keep and make money.” more money.”
‘Manifestly grossly inadequate’: Arizona’s prison health care system ruled unconstitutional
Kara Williams, a former incarcerated person who now works as a smart justice organizer for the ACLU of Arizona, said the ruling was a victory, “but now we have to hold them accountable.”
“I came home from prison and I had to have emergency surgery because of a huge lack of care,” Williams said. She said the health care system in Arizona prisons is a “joke.”
“People have been dying for years,” Williams said. “At least now the focus is on that issue.”
Do you have a tip on Arizona prisons? Contact the reporter at jjenkins@arizonarepublic.com or 812-243-5582. Follow him on Twitter @JimmyJenkins.
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