<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2>hello comrades,<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2>Today the New York Times
broke a story about a mother-infant prison facility that LSPC has been
investigating for months. Please read the article below, <b>but
please do more than that:</b> Call the members of California's
state government and let them know we do not accept abuse and neglect! It
only takes 2 minutes to make a difference. Flood their offices with our
voices!<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2><b>CALL NOW:<br>
</b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2><b>Wendy Still
</b></font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=1>(Assoc. Director of
Women and Children, California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation)</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2>
<b>916-322-8055 <br>
<u>tell her:</u></b> "I am outraged about the neglect and
abuse of mothers and their children at Family Foundations San
Diego. Stop punishing these families!"<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2><b>Sen. Christine Kehoe
</b></font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=1>(California State
Senator, San Diego) <br>
</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2><b>916-651-4039<br>
<u>tell her: </u></b>"I am outraged about the neglect and
abuse of mothers and their children at Family Foundations San
Diego. There is no such thing as 'better beds'; stop California's
prison expansion now!"<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2><b>Sen. Gloria Romero
</b></font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=1>(California State
Senator, Los Angeles)<br>
</font><font face="Book Antiqua, Bookman" size=2><b>916-651-4024<br>
<u>tell her: </u></b>"I am outraged about the neglect and abuse of
mothers and their children at Family Foundations San Diego. There
is no such thing as 'better beds'; We support Sen. Romero in
stopping California's prison expansion!"<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
Maisha Quint<br>
Advocacy Coordinator<br>
Legal Services For Prisoners with Children<br>
1540 Market Street Suite 490<br>
San Francisco, CA 94102<br>
(p) 415-255-7036<br>
(f) 415-552-3150<br>
<a href="mailto:maisha@prisonerswithchildren.org">
maisha@prisonerswithchildren.org</a><br>
<a href="http://www.prisonerswithchildren.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.prisonerswithchildren.org</a> <br>
<br><br>
The New York Times<br>
July 6, 2007<br>
California Investigates a Mother-and-Child Prison Center<br>
By SOLOMON MOORE<br><br>
LOS ANGELES, July 5 - The authorities in California are investigating
accusations that poor health care at a center where mothers serve prison
terms with their young children led to the stillbirth of a 7-month-old
fetus and endangered the lives of several children.<br><br>
Staff logs, statements by prisoners and interviews with investigators,
staff members and prisoners' families depict a facility where inmates and
their children were denied hospital visits and medications, and where no
one kept adequate records of accidents involving injuries that included a
skull fracture and a broken collarbone.<br><br>
The California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, one of several
agencies investigating, is expected to decide this month whether to
continue licensing the center, which houses nonviolent offenders, most
convicted of drug crimes.<br><br>
The problems at the center coincide with continuing intense scrutiny of
health care delivery in California's prisons. A court-appointed receiver
was handed control of prison medical services more than a year ago after
a federal court found widespread neglect and malpractice.<br>
The 40-bed facility, located in San Diego and offered as an alternative
to serving time in the customary penitentiary setting, has
dormitory-style rooms for inmate and child adjoining shared living areas.
It is run under the banner of the Family Foundations Program by a
nonprofit contractor, Center Point Inc., which did not return calls
seeking comment.<br><br>
An official with the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, Wendy Still, said the department had looked into
accusations surrounding the center and had ordered Center Point, based in
San Rafael, Calif., to hire a part-time doctor for the facility and keep
a registered nurse there. Disciplinary action could be taken against
Center Point, depending on the results of the investigation, Ms. Still
said.<br><br>
The San Diego police would not comment on the inquiry, except to confirm
that their child abuse unit was taking part. A spokeswoman for the
court-appointed receiver, Robert Sillen, said it was unlikely that his
authority extended to the care of children at the center.<br><br>
"We don't think that these kids are part of our mandate, because
they are not incarcerated," said the spokeswoman, Rachel
Kagan.<br><br>
With the state dogged by prison overcrowding, the Family Foundations
Program had been considered a model for nonviolent female offenders. A
provision for a similar program in Fresno, the state's sixth for
incarcerated mothers and their children, is in a new law that, to
accommodate 53,000 more prisoners, provides $7.7 billion for prison
construction and new initiatives.<br><br>
Though only a small fraction of the total prison population, female
inmates are growing in number in California and other states. The federal
Bureau of Justice Statistics announced last week that the nation's prison
and jail population grew 2.8 percent from midyear 2005 to midyear 2006,
the largest rise since 2000, and that the number of incarcerated women
grew at almost double the overall rate, to a total of 111,403.<br><br>
Sharp increases in imprisonment of women began after the enactment of
stiffer drug sentencing laws in the 1980s and 1990s, said Robert J.
LaLonde, an economist at the University of Chicago.<br><br>
"A lot of women who probably wouldn't have gone to prison before are
now going in for Class 4 drug felonies - the least serious
felonies," Dr. LaLonde said, referring to crimes that in some
instances had previously resulted in nothing more than
probation.<br><br>
Studies show that about 75 percent of imprisoned women across the country
are mothers, most of whom had custody of their children before their
incarceration. In most cases, the children are left in the care of
grandparents or other members of the extended family, but about 10
percent are placed in foster care.<br><br>
Only a handful of states offer imprisoned mothers the opportunity to live
with their children, and even those states allocate few spaces to them.
The most such spaces are in California, where 140 women live with their
children at five small centers, including the one in San Diego.<br><br>
Advocates of mother-child prison programs say they can reduce recidivism
while retaining family bonds and easing pressure on the state's child
welfare system. But even supporters worry that the California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or C.D.C., may be too dysfunctional to
provide sufficient oversight.<br><br>
"This program has fallen by the wayside," said Karen Shain,
co-director of Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, based in San
Francisco. "I don't want to say that they should shut it all down,
but I don't know that the C.D.C. has the capacity to take care of women
and children."<br><br>
Accusations of neglect and incompetence at the San Diego center
abound.<br><br>
For instance, one inmate, Marsha Strickland, complained to the staff
about her 5-year-old daughter's blinding headaches and constant nausea
for at least six weeks before the girl was allowed a hospital visit in
January, according to accounts by inmates and former staff members. The
child is now living with relatives and undergoing treatment for brain
cancer.<br><br>
In April, another prisoner, Sonya Bradford, delivered a stillborn fetus.
According to interviews with former staff members and to witness
statements offered to the San Diego police, the prison's staff had
ignored Ms. Bradford's complaints that the fetus, which was 7 months old,
had stopped moving. Corrections officials deny responsibility for the
stillbirth because it occurred only two days after Ms. Bradford's arrival
at the center.<br><br>
Yet another inmate, Dinesha Lawson, says she told the staff for several
days that her infant daughter's breathing was labored. Finally, on May 3,
Ms. Lawson and the baby, Esperanza, were taken to the emergency room of a
children's hospital, driven there by Trish Hoban, a vocational counselor
later fired by Center Point on the ground, she says, that she had shared
inmates' confidential health information with other inmates, an
accusation she denies.<br><br>
"They took the baby into the trauma ward to a room called the
resuscitation room," Ms. Hoban said of Esperanza. "They said
the baby's heart rate was 32. She was in cardiac arrest."<br><br>
Esperanza's father, William Ramirez, says she had double pneumonia and
was later given a regimen of antibiotics and a blood transfusion.<br>
Ms. Still, the corrections official, denies that the girl was in cardiac
arrest but acknowledges that she required placement in an
incubator.<br><br>
<br>
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company<br><br>
<br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS: Patrice Douglass, 510-367-9956 (cell) Karen Shain,
415-672-3311 (cell)<br><br>
<dd>Cassie Pierson, 415-255-7036 ext. 310(office)<br><br>
<dd>DATE: July 5, 2007 <br><br>
<br>
</font>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>Prison Investigation
Uncovers Child Abuse Pattern <br><br>
</font><div align="center">
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>Unsafe Conditions at San
Diego’s <br><br>
<dd>Family Foundation Program</font><font size=5> <br><br>
</b></font>
<dd><font size=3> <br><br>
</font></div>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=2>SAN DIEGO</font> –San
Diego Police Department and Child Protective Services have opened an
investigation into severe child abuse and neglect by California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) Family Foundations
Program (FFP) in San Diego, prisoners' rights advocates have learned.
Because there is no transparent oversight into the FFP programs, these
practices went unreported until Legal Services for Prisoners with
Children (LSPC), a San Francisco-based prisoners' rights advocacy group,
began receiving calls and uncovering case after case problematic
neglect.<br><br>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>In one instance, Denisha
Lawson, a prisoner at FFP San Diego, gave birth to a premature baby who
became very ill shortly after she left the hospital. After pleading with
FFP staff for days to take her baby to the hospital, Denisha refused to
move until her baby received care. When the infant was finally taken to
the hospital the child was in near complete cardiac arrest. Denisha
Lawson’s partner, William Ramirez and father of the newborn baby asks,
“If Family Foundations is supposed to be a treatment facility, why would
they do this to women and babies? Denisha did nothing wrongshe was only
trying to protect our daughter.” <br><br>
<dd>“Women will go through a lot to stay with their children. The CDCR
has created a system where women are afraid to complain because they
don’t want to be separated. I can only imagine their fear and anger when
they realize that their children are in danger!” said Harriette Davis,
LSPC Board Secretary and a former prisoner who sued for access to a
mother-infant program when she was pregnant with her daughter in the
1980s. <br><br>
<dd>“LSPC and other advocates must be allowed access to all mother-infant
facilities run by the CDCR to ensure that women and children know their
rights and are receiving proper care,” said Cassie Pierson, staff
attorney at LSPC.<br><br>
<dd>In addition to expressing concern for their children’s health,
mothers are scrambling to find the daily essentials needed for their
children’s care. In an unprecedented show of unity, all 26 women at the
FFP in San Diego filed a grievance on June 20th</sup>, 2007, asking how
their children’s money is being spent when the facility is chronically
undersupplied with diapers, bottles, and other necessities. “We’d like to
know how our funds are allocated and why we always run short. We’d like
an ample amount of supplies in stock as to prevent these situations from
occurring in the future,” the grievance states. <br><br>
<dd>Former FFP San Diego employee Megan N. Lini, when told about this
public scandal, expressed deep fear for her former clients. “I only hope
that no child gets separated from their mother because of the criminal
actions of FFP staff. I wish I could have done more to protect these
people while I was working there.”<br><br>
<dd>Advocates say this investigation shows that punitive programs are not
the answer to substance abuse/use and that isolation does not stop this
cycle. Maisha Quint, family advocacy coordinator at LSPC, said, “There is
a better way. If you really want to help women rehabilitate, stop putting
them in hidden cages. These women need real community-run programs where
they and their children can heal.” <br><br>
<dd>Cynthia Chandler, co-director of Justice Now, an Oakland-based
organization that advocates for the legal and human rights of women in
prison, explains, “The pattern of abuse at Family Foundations is exactly
why women in prison and their advocates have been opposed to prison
expansion in any form. With judges poised to cap the prison population
and prisoner medical care already under federal receivership, it is clear
that expanding the system just isn’t an option.”<br><br>
</font>
<dd> <br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
</dl><font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>