WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court Tuesday ruled inmates need not be advised of their right to remain silent and seek attorney advice during an interrogation over a crime separate from their current imprisonment.

The top court overturned a US Court of Appeals decision that threw out a prisoner’s conviction because he was not technically in “custody” when questioned for the he was being questioned for, despite being incarcerated for an unrelated offense. Report by AFP.

The case involved the inmate Randall Fields in Michigan being interviewed in a Michigan prison over an assault of a 12-year-old girl, where he was not informed of his right to stay silent.

His conviction was overturned because he was not informed of what is known in the United States as “Miranda rights,” which is based on the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination.

“Imprisonment alone is not enough to create a custodial situation,” wrote justice Samuel Alito for the majority opinion, after six out of the nine judges ruled to throw out the lower court decision.

Alito said it was an “undisputed fact” Fields was told he was “free to end the questioning and to return to his cell.” Alito insisted “confessions voluntarily made by prisoners… should not be suppressed.”

For the minority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued an inmate already in prison being told they is “free to terminate this interrogation and return to your cell… is no substitute for one ensuring that an individual is aware of his rights.”

The interrogation of Fields “in a police-dominated atmosphere, without informing him of his rights, dishonored the Fifth Amendment privilege Miranda was designed to safeguard,” she wrote.

Tammy Inmate Rights, Washington

Similar to other children her age, 10-year-old Sylvia Nyiraseggiyava wanted to become a doctor after her education. She enjoyed education at Kamengo Primary School and lived a normal childhood until her life’s time clock momentarily stalled.

While at school, Sylvia was told that her mother, Laulensia Nyinabazungu, had been accused of murder and picked up by the police. “On reaching home, I discovered that my mother had been arrested and taken to Kamengo Police Station,” she says. Report by AllAfrica.com.

Feeling helpless, Sylvia’s elder sister went off to Rwanda, leaving the little girl under the care of an old man, who was not a relative. Sylvia’s mother insisted that she would rather stay with her daughter in Luzira Prison than let her live with a stranger. Prisons staff brought the girl to her.

Nyinabazungu was sentenced to 50 years in jail after the High Court sitting in Mpigi found her guilty of murder, making her the first woman in Uganda to receive such a sentence.

New home

Today, Sylvia is one of the 43 children accommodated at the Luzira-based Family of Africa, a home that accommodates children detained with their mothers.

In its 21 women detention facilities countrywide, the Uganda Prisons Service currently has 161 children detained alongside their mothers. With 43 children, Luzira Women’s Prison has the biggest number.

Angella Akwia, the in-charge of Family of Africa project, argues that children should not be left to languish because of crimes committed by their mothers, yet often, detention of a single mother leaves her children helpless.

For many of them [detained women], the events leading to imprisonment rip apart their marriages. As a result, they are abandoned by their husbands.

Even after detention, newly-released mothers usually have no source of livelihood. As a result, some of them stealthily walk out of prison on release, leaving their children behind.

Currently, the Family of Africa is looking after three children who were abandoned by their mothers after release.

Born in prison

An ex-prisoner who preferred anonymity says she was sent locked up behind bars for murder while pregnant. Shortly after, she delivered and for almost ten years, she was in prison with her child because there was no one to take care of her. Even relatives abandoned her when she was convicted.

Upon release, she did not know where to go with her child. “Despite the fact that I was happy about being freed from jail, it was a trying moment since I was homeless. Being homeless and unemployed, I could not take care of the child. I made the toughest and most painful decision of my life of leaving my daughter behind.”

That day, she cried as she walked out of prison. “I said bye to my daughter as I left and promised the authorities that I would come for her as soon as I got a job and accommodation,” she narrates.

Fortunately, Mission After Custody, a non-government organisation, accommodated her until she found a job as a housemaid. She hopes one day she will make enough money to rent a room and get her daughter out of Luzira.

During a conference last year, the executive director of Mission After Custody, Morris Kizito explained that jobless, homeless ex-prisoners were partly responsible for the increasing crime rates.

According to research conducted five years ago, the Uganda Prison Service had a re-offending rate of 40%, implying that out of every 100 inmates released, 40 would be back in prison within a year.

The prison’s publicist, Frank Baine says the service is seeking funds to cater for children who are innocent, but find themselves victims of circumstance.

e observes: “Much as the current prison budget caters for children who are detained with their mothers, specific consideration for kids is sometimes not put in place.”

Children require more frequent and specialized medical attention, which the prisons department is not prepared for. Besides, life in prison traumatizes the children, which increases their likelihood of committing crimes when they grow up.

Yet, like Sylvia, 161 children are trapped in that situation. Authorities at the Family of Africa home say despite the challenges the young girl has been facing, she will soon be transferred to a home that accommodates older children to enable her access education since the present one is meant for children below three years.

Tammy Inmate Rights, Jail and Prison Conditions, Uganda

OTTAWA — Complaints of double-bunking in Canadian prisons nearly tripled from 2009 to 2010, according to the departmental performance report released by the Office of the Correctional Investigator.

Double-bunking is against government policy and is supposed to be used only in emergency situations because it places two inmates in a cell designed for one. In 2010-11, complaints rose to 44 from 15 complaints the previous year. Report by The Vancouver Sun.

In the OCI’s annual report, released in June, double-bunking was described as “particularly unsafe, contrary to human dignity, inconsistent with (Correctional Services Canada’s) accommodation policy and, quite likely, a violation of international human rights detention standards.”

The report goes on to say double-bunking is not appropriate — especially at a time when the population of federal prisons is on the rise. The situation is made worse, the report said, due to the high rates of mental illness, drug addiction, violence and gang membership among prison populations.

Lead investigator at the OCI, Howard Sapers, told CBC News the cells are for housing an inmate 23, and in some cases 24, hours a day in a confined space. He said double-bunking borders on inhumane custody.

The annual report recommends the federal prison system explicitly outlaw double-bunking in all segregation and segregation-like cells. The report says that now is the perfect time to make this policy change because the rules are in the process of being reviewed and updated.

The OCI acts as an ombudsman between inmates and the corrections service. The office takes complaints and, when necessary, performs investigations and makes recommendations to the prison service.

Overall, complaints to the office have increased by four per cent. Last year, there were 5,748 complaints, up slightly from the previous year.

Complaints about dental care, legal counsel, discipline and decisions issued by the OCI all saw an increase. While complaints about inmate diet, transfers and security all declined. Inmates’ complaints about family visits stopped altogether — there were 63 in 2009-10 but none last year.

The performance report released last week says the department is performing well, especially considering its limited staff of 30. The report also says the office budget will be increased by nearly $1 million from its current $3 million budget.

The OCI report comes at a time where the government is increasing the number of prisons as legislation is debated to introduce mandatory minimums and other changes to the Criminal Code. Critics have said the legislation will unnecessarily put Canadians behind bars, leading to problems seen in the United States.

Tammy Canada, Inmate Rights, Prison Population

Officers in federal prisons want legislation allowing access to the health records of inmates who attack them with bodily fluids. This is needed to help them protect themselves against contracting infectious diseases, their union says.

“It’s an unfortunate reality of the job that correctional officers are always attacked by inmates in prisons,” says Lyle Stewart, a spokesperson with the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. Report by The Epoch Times.

Aside from the fact that it is not a pleasant experience for correctional officers to be attacked with urine, saliva, excrement, semen, and even bloody syringes, what is more worrying is the high rate of infectious diseases among inmates, explains Stewart.

“Inmates nowadays have higher rates of HIV infection and hepatitis C infection, and many other disease infections.”

But under Canada’s privacy laws, inmates’ health records cannot be surrendered to the attacked officer.

“The correctional officer has no right to know whether this inmate is infected with a deadly disease,” says Stewart.

As a result, even though it might not be necessary, some officers choose to follow a “post-exposure protocol”—a pharmaceutical regimen of several different drugs designed to ward off infectious diseases. However, the side effects of these drugs can be highly detrimental.

“The officer is often off work for many months, because it’s impossible to work when you follow a drug regimen like this,” says Stewart. “And while there is still a fear that someone may have contracted a deadly disease such as this, there are limits with their spouse and their children, and their other normal life and interactions are severely limited.”

Forcing attackers to release their health records could also act as a deterrent for inmates, Stewart says.

“[Inmates] know that the Correctional Service now interprets privacy laws in the way that they do. … So even if they don’t have a disease, sometimes it’s happened that they would lie—they would splash someone in the face with a cup of bodily fluids and say, ‘Ha ha, now you’re going to die, you’ve got my disease,’ even if it’s not true.”

Suzanne Leclerc, a spokesperson with Correctional Service Canada (CSC), says the department does not release inmates’ medical files “in accordance with the Privacy Act and provincial legislation related to the sharing of personal health information.”

Leclerc says the department has agreements with hospitals, clinics, and other health centres in close proximity to each institution across the country so that appropriate treatment is readily available.

“CSC’s current policy requires that individuals who are exposed to blood or bodily fluids of another individual be referred for prompt assessment and medical management,” she says.

Some provinces already have a Blood Samples Act so that first responders such as emergency workers, police, and prison officers can find out if they’re at risk of contracting a disease if they’ve been exposed to someone’s bodily fluids.

Stewart says that before the 2006 federal election, the Conservatives informed the union that legislation would be implemented to address the issue. However, no action has been taken.

The Epoch Times contacted the Prime Minister’s Office for comment but no response was received.

Tammy Canada, Inmate Health, Inmate Rights, Public Release

The Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike has gained considerable momentum. The renewed strike began last week and is the second such mass action staged by inmates in less than six months to draw attention to overly punitive treatment. Thousands of inmates have reportedly joined the effort in prisons throughout California and across three additional states, despite efforts by prison administration to crackdown on inmates.

The effort began at the Secure Housing Unit at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison on September 26, and inmates from a dozen facilities throughout the state are now participating. According to the federal receiver’s office, 12,000 prisoners are now participating in the hunger strike, including 3,000 inmates housed in out-of-state facilities in Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. Report by Colorlines News for Action.

As Julianne Hing reported last week, conditions in the prison’s Secure Housing Unit (SHU) have not improved according to prisoners’ original demands. In July, 6,000 inmates went on strike to protest inhumane prison policies, including one that allowed nearly half of Pelican Bay’s 1,111 prisoners to be held in solitary confinement for more than ten years.

The strike has now become the largest such action in recent history, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has addressed it as such. CDCR classifies the strike as an organized disturbance, thereby institutionalizing disciplinary actions against prisoners. Some strike leaders have been transferred to solitary confinement units.

Families of inmates have also been denied visits to Pelican Bay, according to Jay Donohue of the Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition (PHSS). “Their visits for the weekend were not allowed, and they’ve been told that they won’t be at all until the strike ends.”

“Denying visits only heightens the isolation that the prisoners and family members experience, especially at this critical time,” said Dolores Canales, the mother of an inmate being held in the Pelican Bay SHU.

Inmates reportedly fear that the initial concessions made by CDCR will get buried in the administrative process. The advocacy group California Correctional Crisis posted two memos that were released by the CDCR on September 27, the first day of the renewed strike. One states that while the department has authorized items such as exercise equipment and wall calendars in SHU, “the policy review and change will take several more months to implement.”

The second memo details the crackdown on participating inmates since the summer. Since the suspension of the hunger strike in July, prison guards have reportedly employed intimidation and retaliation tactics such as raiding inmates’ cells and issuing excessively harsh write-ups.

The CDCR has also expelled two attorneys chosen by inmates to represent them on the mediation team. That team has been representing prisoners in negotiations with the CDCR since July.

“This is very worrisome to say the least, ” said Carol Strickman, one of the mediation team lawyers who have been banned from CDCR facilities, according to Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity. “We obviously don’t want to imagine the worst, but we are legitimately concerned about violence on the part of the prison administration.”

On Friday, the two attorneys appealed to Gov. Jerry Brown requesting a meeting to ensure completion of proposed reforms. They are still waiting for a response.

Meanwhile, the strike continues to spread.

“We’re hearing from groups internationally, and the support only continues to grow,” said Donohue. “This is just an indication—the fact that there’s international support as well—that something is seriously wrong in California throughout the prison system, not just in the SHUs and ASUs, and that prisoners actually recognize and understand that, and they have no recourse except to strike.”

Tammy California, Hunger Strike, Inmate Rights, Uncategorized