Street roots., August 25, 2017, Page 7, Image 7

Page 7
News
Street Roots • August 25-31, 2017
SOLITARY, from page 5
after confidential informants indicated he
was receiving and selling meth, according
to a misconduct report.
Before the 30-day investigation was
completed, Staggs received notice that he’d
been placed under administrative hold and
would continue to stay in solitary
confinement for “six months or until the
investigation is complete.”
Charges weren’t issued until January.
He wrote that the investigators “are
simply taking the word of other inmates
who are under the influence of narcotics,
who fail U A testing and then are offered a
deal to avoid (segregation) themselves.”
He went on to say that his mental and
emotional health were affected, and his
reputation as a model inmate had been
destroyed.
“Every prison official, program
facilitator and educational teacher I’ve had,
all the way down to the medication line
nurses, keep me in question,” he wrote.
When his fiancée called the prison to
find out what had happened, she said, the
lieutenant told her that there was no
physical evidence Staggs was involved but
that he had a “hunch” he was going to
continue to follow up on.
Meanwhile, Staggs sat in isolation while
the investigation continued.
At Staggs’ request, fellow inmate Jason
Ellis submitted what he called a
“declaration of truth.” It stated that in
January 2017, the lieutenant offered him a
“G-Shock watch with large metal buttons”
in exchange for testimony that would
incriminate Staggs.
EUis wrote that during the exchange, the
lieutenant insisted Staggs had shown EUis
that he had meth.
“I denied this, as it was untrue, Ellis
wrote, adding that the lieutenant again told
him that if he would just fill out the form
saying Staggs showed him drugs, the watc
would be his for free.
,,
Ellis did not sign a statement, but othe
reportedly did.
According to Staggs’ disciplinary hearing
order, he was found guilty of introduction
and distribution of meth into Oregon State
Penitentiary because “a large amoun o
confidential informant testimony was
submitted in this case and deemed to be
FILE PHOTO BY JOSEPH C5LOOE
The Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.
Corrections officials are
weighing recommended
changes but face barriers
BY EMILY GREEN
S T A F F W R IT E R
its use of solitary confinement, or
segregatedhousing,throughout
| ^ t e correctional institutions.
.
The first phase was an assessment of
solitary confinement use across Oregon s
P The result was an October 2016 report
finding six of the state institutions confine
See SOLITARY, page 9
staff training on mental health, crisis .
response, communication and responding
to gender differences and identity.
The Vera Institute has continued to
WOtit With Oregon S C d
jjte p a r tm e n tin evaluating the
Correctional Institution in Eastern Oregon,
recently implemented new programming
that allows inmates to study in a classroom
setting outside of their cells for an average
of four hours per week.
That prison’s institutions administrator,
M a rk N o o th , sa id w hile “it w o u ld b e n ice
to d o a lo t o t th in g s ” sn c h a s
implementation
corrections officials, there is no timeline
yet in sight for making any of them a
segregated housing. This accounted for
about 8 percent of the states 14,1134
iamatesatthetimeof the assessment^
The institute has worked with 13 states
and cities on reforms to solitary
confinement because nationwide use of
isolation has grown considerably in recent
years, even as mounting evidence shows
it's detrimental to the health and wellbeing
reality*
Joe Etter, head of the workgroup
overseeing the process, said the Vera
Institute of Justice report was part of an
ongoing effort within Oregon Department
of Corrections to develop best practices
of inmates.
According to the institute, segregation
was originally intended to deal with people
committing violence within prisons, but
now it’s relied upon heavily to manage
challenging populations, to hou®e
,
vulnerable people and to punish people fo
all levels of infractions, including minor
and nonviolent violations.
In Oregon, solitai
' >
illlllllll
f
cells for 22 to 24 hours per day with little
human interaction and little or no access
to constructive activity, according to the
that program, “it comes down to stalling,
and unfortunately the architecture was not
(b u ilt for a lot of the recommendations.
bietxmmiendations# bnt^cording to
city of their pp| mlations hi
This time, however, he was able to
participate in the newer Prof a” f’
got him out of his cell and shackled to
seat in a classroom for about four hours
Se^Imagine a hotel bathroom,” she said.
«That’s about the size of an individual cell.
III
years ago, Oregon D epartm ent
believable.”
There was no physical evidence.
Whether any of the testimony is true is
questionable, but the result was another
long stint in segregation, followed by
another move to the IM U at Snake River.
each week.
He found the new program far more
beneficial than the packets, and he signed
up to be a teacher’s aide in future classes.
He was released back into general
population this past week. He had just
spent another 10 months in segregation.
Sarah Radcliffe, an attorney vnft>
Disability Rights Oregon, said her of
constantly receives comptants about
conditions in Oregon prisons special
The Infcens
Some key changes the Vera Institute
recommended included reducing the
number of infractions eligible for
segregation; reducing the maximum length
of stay in disciplinary segregation, which is
currently set at six months; allowing more
opportunities for inmates to leave their
cells and more activities for when they
S o n ’t; studying and addressing racial
They call for more resources, and at some
point if we are able to do that, we will. But
i f s going to take time.”
,
Two years before the Vera Institute
assessment, Disability Rights Oregon
released its own report on Oregon State
Penitentiary’s Behavioral Health Unit.
It found men in this unit spend months,
sometimes years, in 6-by-10-foot cells wit
no natural light or access to outdoors or
while weighing guidelines from various
sources, including the U .S . Department of
Justice and its review of the federal prison
system.
.
The workgroup, which meets twice
monthly, is still evaluating the many
recommendations to see which ones need
further review.
“The community, for a number of years,
has been tough on crime, and the prisons
across the nation have been built as such,
Etter said. “They weren’t designed for
programming. They weren’t staffed for
programming. So there will be a lot of
He said the main priority is maintaining
safety for staff, inmates and the public.
When asked if reducing the use of
segregation was also priority, he said, We
are looking at all of the recommendations.
These units range from Disciplinary
Segregation Units, where the majority of
isolated inmates are housed as a form of
public safety. We want to do what we can
for those folks that are going to return to
Banishin£
Intermediate Care Housing and the
Behavioral Health Unit, designed for
inmates requiring mental health treatment
return to the community hopefully bett er
suited. What that’s going to look like at the
end of the day. 1 can’t tell you.”
speak to people.
What was supposed to be mental health
care had turned into solitary confinement
as the prison shifted away from clinical
staff and treatment and toward safety and
convenience for correctional staff, the
The report also found “a culture that
promotes unnecessary violence and
retaliation.”
Disability Rights Oregon also made
several recommendations, and Oregon
Department of Corrections agreed to
improve conditions within four years. In
April, Disability Rights Oregon released a
ft
_
' ■
J
' ' : to®9
has made some positive improvements,
such as allowing televisions in the cells
an
: ■
■ ■ ■ ’ : ■ :
department has made little progress on
what the advocacy group calls the key
indicator of jn
3 : |
■
I * I
■ ls ■
out of their cells.
“After one year of effort,
curre
av
nt
is less than five hours per week, the
report said.