LA County Jails Archives - Dignity and Power Now

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Mission Neglectful

When we at Dignity and Power Now saw Los Angeles County’s Mission Possible website we were floored. How could anyone take a website about the Los Angeles County jails seriously that says they provide “compassionate whole-person care”? The county uses blatant misrepresentation and coopts terms like “social justice” to paint a very un-lifelike picture that shows jails as places of healing. We of course know that is not true. The county made a video to go along with their campaign. So did we. Except we call ours Mission Neglectful.

There have been 6 deaths in the jails so far in 2018 and an average of 25 deaths every year – many due to medical neglect. In the video above DPN Campaign Lead James Nelson acts as a doctor who loves his job because he gets to do whatever he wants – including clocking out and working at other jobs. The script was based on information provided by a DPN source inside Twin Towers who handed over details on medical staff who work several other healthcare jobs while on the clock in the jails, including the psychiatrist whose name is bleeped out in our video. Oh, and the Ellen Wong story is sadly very real too.

DPN Deputy Director of Health and Wellness Melanie Griffin points out the absurdity of DHS Director of Community Health Mark Ghaly’s statement that “there’s a high no show rate to appointments,” saying, “You know, because prisoners just don’t show up.” The DPN source also provided information about how doctors will deliberately try to see prisoners while they’re in court or meeting with their lawyers so they can check them off on their list and send them back to the beginning of the line.

Outside of procedural neglect, Melanie also brings light to systemic abuses like the fact that people in the jails often do not have access to healthcare on the outside, expressing that people won’t be able to get followup treatment for diagnosed aliments and that they were probably caused by unaddressed socioeconomic issues to begin with. In the hiring video spoof Melanie sarcastically states, “But you get the be the doctor that tells them they have cancer.” Fact is, the county should be spending the $3.5 billion they plan to spend on jails on addressing fundamental healthcare in communities. That’s why we support the Reform LA Jails and Community Reinvestment Initiative, a ballot measure that if voted in would require them to do just that.

The Mission Neglectful video is part of a larger episode of the DPN produced show Grassroots with Jayda. The episode also includes a conversation with DPN Board Member and Statewide Health and Wellness Organizer Mark-Anthony Johnson. Watch the full episode below for more insight on the county’s misguided mission and what we’re doing about it.

New episodes of Grassroots with Jayda will stream monthly on Dignity and Power Now’s YouTube channel.

For more on the Reform LA Jails and Community Reinvestment Initiative visit reformlajails.com.

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Witnessing Wellness

Witnessing is a word that gets used a lot these days in social justice circles. Like many of our words that come into fashion, it can be easy for them to lose their meaning and or it can be hard to really figure out what that word looks like in action.

Institutions like jails, prisons, and detention centers are made to hide away and prevent witnessing.

So it felt very powerful to set up outside Lynwood Jail on February 10th and bear witness to the very regular trials, tribulations, and heartbreak that people experience visiting their loved ones inside. It felt very powerful to be able to offer support in the form of food, water, and gifts that support health. We gave out 30 DPN wellness kits with a Rest Easy Tea and a Cleansing Body Scrub. We listened to people talk about their families and what their incarcerated loved ones are going through.

This month we were a small group and without tables to boot. But we were able to connect with a lot of people who are interested in building people power and resistance to caging people.

Most of the folks we spoke to had family inside who were dealing with mental health problems. It was heartbreaking to hear how often that was the case. All the more motivation and fire to fuel the jail fight. LA County’s plan to use billions of dollars to make a jail for mentally ill people are blueprints for tragedy, further heartbreak, and injustice.

Let’s take care of ourselves and each other so that we can keep up the fight.

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Jeff Sessions is a Major Player in the LA County Jail Suicide Epidemic

Throughout the last presidential administration the Department of Justice has played an important role in implementing changes within the LA County Jail system. From stepping up the treatment of mentally ill prisoners to the probe into jail abuse that eventually led to the convictions of both former Sheriff Baca and Undersheriff Tanaka, the Justice Department has been one of the only departments to even scratch the service of “policing the police.”

Now Jeff Sessions is heading it.

Jeff Sessions has a long history of opposing civil rights, and particularly the civil rights of Black people. In four short months he’s already established himself as a champion of law enforcement, no matter the circumstance. When speaking to a group of federal, state, and local law enforcement in Long Island on April 28th he made his stance clear by saying “This is the Trump era – so you can be confident that this nation’s leadership has your back.”

Despite the fact that he continuously uses terms like aliens and thugs in his speeches, has rolled back protections for transgender students in schools, is actively targeting non-documented people for deportation, and is unapologetically pro-law enforcement, he somehow heads the nation’s DOJ Civil Rights Division.

After a series of investigations into the LA County jails by the Civil Rights Division dating back to 1996, a failed memorandum of agreement, and a lawsuit settlement, everything culminated in 2015 when the DOJ reached a “wide-ranging and court-enforceable agreement to protect prisoners from serious suicide risks and excessive force in the largest jail system in the country.” These reforms were designed to prevent and respond more effectively to suicides and self-inflicted injuries and address use of force through multiple detailed measures. However, this settlement (aka consent decree) only works if it is enforced by the DOJ.

Which it clearly is not…

In 2015 use of force in the jails went up 40%, and recently even the department’s own Inspector General has come out saying there is no updated data on the sheriff’s departments’ use of force. And as for suicide attempts, there have already been nine deaths that we know of in 2017.

As of last month Jeff Sessions has ordered the DOJ to review all existing consent decrees, including the much-needed one in LA County, because, in his words, consent decrees between the federal government and local police departments can “reduce morale of the police officers.”

While the world is focused on Trump (for good reason), as abolitionists we must focus on Jeff Sessions and not let him carry out his discriminatory policies and build his militarized white supremacist police state under the radar. All eyes on the Department of Justice. And that includes Thomas Wheeler II, who currently heads the Civil Rights Division and already has a history of proposing hateful laws and giving questionable speeches.

To stop use of force, to stop the suicide epidemic, to stop the PIC, we must stop Jeff Sessions.

Director of Health and Wellness Mark-Anthony Johnson said it best last week in the Sacramento Bee:

He’s advancing a narrative that Black communities are violent; also that law enforcement is losing the morale and that’s a danger to public safety. That’s a very dangerous combination.

Follow DPN and #TrollJeffSessions on social for future action steps.

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