By Joel
Freedman
Not long
ago, I received a letter from a Massachusetts prisoner who asked me to be an
advocate for the passage of a bill that had been introduced in the
Massachusetts House of Representatives. House Bill #2333, "An Act Establishing
The Massachusetts Correction Commission," would create an independent
commission to help assure that the basic rights of prisoners would be protected.
While I certainly want prisoners' rights in Massachusetts to be protected, I hesitate to support House Bill
#2333 without some evidence that a Massachusetts Correction Commission would
not deteriorate into an ineffective agency, like the New York State Commission
of Correction, that would not fulfill the mission for which it was created.
In the aftermath of the Attica prison tragedy of 1971, the New
York State Commission of Correction (SCOC) was created to protect the rights
of inmates. Memories of what has happened after this Commission was established
contributed to my reluctance to support Massachusetts House Bill #2333.
In February 1974 and March 1975, R.
Robert Byers, an investigator for the SCOC, visited the Dutchess County Jail
and reported that the facility was "in total violation of all minimum
standards". After Byers, a former chief of police of Guilderland, New York, and co-inspector Stephen Rahavy
complained that their reports were being ignored, they were fired by the
Commission's chairman, Morton G. Von Hoesen.
On April 21,
1975, Byers
and Rahavy testified before the New York State Senate Committee on Crime and
Correction. Although the Commission from which they had been dismissed was
created to protect inmates, the two men were fired for doing their jobs in a
conscientious manner. "The Commission was created to prevent more Atticas, more
suicides, more conditions of filth and inadequate treatment. As we now know, it
has failed," Byers told the legislative panel. Both former inspectors testified
they were also prevented from conducting thorough investigations of the Schenectady, Albany, Ulster and Westchester County Jails. Former
U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who served as counsel to Byers and Rahavy,
said, "This is just another example of how institutions are failing, and the
Commission has served to reinforce their inadequacies."
Shortly after becoming New York's governor, Hugh Carey selected
Herman Schwartz, a strong defender of inmates' rights, to head the Commission,
but the State Senate refused to accept this appointment. In July 1976, Carey
named Stephen Chinlund to the post. Chinlund, a Protestant clergyman and former
prison warden, was acceptable to the Legislature. Shortly after assuming his
post, Chinlund fired Scott Christianson, director of the Commission's state
facilities unit, for telling the news media about continuing inadequacies at Attica. Other staff members who shared
Christianson's fervor for policing the prisons and jails were also fired, or
they resigned. Woodie Fitchette, a Gannett News service writer, noted that "the
Commission is weak, ineffective, and some would say cowardly. It has no
credibility with inmates, whose complaints it is supposed to monitor."
During the past several decades the SCOC has never become what it was
intended to be, a strong watchdog. Over the past 20 years, several of my
"Justicia" articles have cited SCOC for its poor performance.
Last year, the State Comptroller
released a report which found that the New York State Commission of Correction
(SCOC) is failing to fulfill its prison
and jail oversight duties. The SCOC is comprised of three commissioners and 25 employees
(down from 66 employees in 1990). Although SCOC has a mandate to regularly inspect New York's 69 adult state prisons, it no
longer does so. It has been 20 years since SCOC has conducted any inspections to determine
if state prisons are in compliance with SCOC regulations. These regulations are
designed to assure proper treatment of inmates. SCOC inspections are supposed to
evaluate "safety, security, health of inmates, sanitary conditions,
rehabilitative programs, disturbance and fire prevention and control
preparedness, and adherence to laws and regulations governing the rights of
inmates."
Auditors in the state comptroller's
office found that "if SCOC is to accomplish its regulatory mission, it must provide an
inspection capacity." They urged "that SCOC establish an ongoing formal risk
assessment process for targeting scarce resources selectively, inspecting those
facilities that have the greatest need for review."
In 1996, the New York State
Legislature made SCOC responsible for overseeing the four secure juvenile
facilities operated by The Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS). SCOC was mandated to adopt rules "for
the care, custody, and treatment of center residents," and to inspect the
facilities to ensure compliance with all regulations. But SCOC has not adopted rules, and made no
inspections of OCFS facilities prior to 2007.
SCOC is also responsible for regularly
inspecting all the county jails in New York. While SCOC does inspect the jails, auditors
found that these inspections are often superficial and incomplete, and
characterized by inadequate follow up when significant violations are found
during inspections. (SCOC had a similar track record when its inspectors used to
investigate state prisons.) Auditors
found similar shortcomings in regard to the responsibility of SCOC to monitor the state's 317 local
police lock-ups.
In its February 2009 report on
healthcare in New York prisons, The Correctional
Association of New York explained how SCOC has been part of the problem
regarding the significant shortcomings in providing medical care in the prisons.
"The State Commission of Corrections has an inmate mortality review panel, but
in recent years this panel's reviews of DOCS inmate deaths due to natural
causes have generally been pro forma statements, and the panel's efforts have
never included any assessment of the overall equality of healthcare in the
Department of Correctional Services (DOCS). Moreover, these reviews are often
delayed and generally do not require any response from DOCS. The SCOC is not monitoring DOCS medical care
and would not be an effective agency to be assigned this task due to its
limited resources and lack of relevant expertise.
Time and time again, we see
oversight or watchdog groups become overly defensive about the institutions
they are supposed to monitor. "Rubber stamp" oversight boards are part of the
problem, rather than part of the solution. Our oversight boards and commissions
should do a better job of performing watchdog functions and effecting needed
changes in the institutions they are supposed to safeguard. Of course these
commissions need to be adequately staffed with qualified, conscientious
personnel who can perform their responsibilities without political interference.
If the Massachusetts Correction Commission is ever established, perhaps it will
not be like the ineffective commission we have in New York. Who knows? But without some
reasonable assurance that a correction commission in Massachusetts really will perform at the highest
caliber, I just can't get enthusiastic about House Bill #2333.
