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Jail Can Mix Inmates: Court

February 20th, 2009
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ny-erie-county-detentionNew York State’s highest court, in a decision made public today, said the Erie County sheriff’s jail division can mingle sentenced and unsentenced inmates at the jails it runs, despite union contentions that it was creating an improper work practice.  As reported by the Buffalo News:

The state Court of Appeals reversed decisions by lower courts and the Public Employment Relations Board. In those decisions, the jail division was told it had to bargain with the unions before changing the system that placed sentenced inmates at the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden and unsentenced prisoners at the Holding Center in Buffalo. Those classifications conformed to the labor jurisdictions of the bargaining units involved.

The Civil Service Employees Association represents the corrections officers charged with guarding sentenced inmates at the Correctional Facility.  The Teamsters union represents the deputy sheriffs charged with guarding presentenced and pretrial detainees at the Holding Center and the “Annex,” the quarters in Alden handling the overflow of Holding Center inmates.

After the lockups were merged under the sheriff’s control in 2000, the state Commission of Correction looked at the county-run jails as one system and insisted on a unified classification standard in which prisoners were housed by their institutional histories, whether they were violent and other factors the commission considered more objective. That forced jail officials to ignore the “sentenced or unsentenced” standard in housing prisoners …

Citing past decisions, the Court of Appeals said a public employer’s decisions are not bargainable as terms and conditions of employment where “they are inherently and fundamentally policy decisions relating to the primary mission of the … employer.” The court said the sheriff has “a statutory requirement to implement and maintain a formal and objective classification system.”

vericatrajkova Assessments and Classification, County-State Issues, NY Erie County, New York, Officer Contract Issues, Personnel Issues

Erie County v the DOJ

August 12th, 2008
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Five people have died in Erie County-run jails since 2007, and the U.S. Justice Department launched an investigation months ago. Now, County Executive Chris Collins has erected a roadblock.

The federal inspectors want to tour the county Correctional Facility in Alden and county Holding Center in downtown Buffalo, NY, focusing on the health care and mental health care the facilities provide. Collins has barred them from those lockups and from the Juvenile Detention Center on the advice of his county attorney. County Attorney Cheryl A. Green says the Justice Department often uses such inquiries to force a level of health care for prisoners and inmates “far greater than what the typical Erie County taxpayer has available to them.”  Green says the Justice Department can sue for access if it wants. The county will then cooperate with an investigation controlled by a federal judge.

Frank words have arrived from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in Washington:

“Failure to cooperate will not halt our investigation,” wrote the chief of the Special Litigation Section, Shanetta Y. Cutlar. She threatened a lawsuit and warned of the “negative inferences” taken from the denial.

Collins is convinced they are doing the right thing.

“She has researched some of the negotiated settlements between the Department of Justice and other counties,” Collins said of Green. “And what was imposed on other counties was a level of care far, far in excess of what you would call a good level practice.  As a litigator, she said to me that, as soon as you invite someone in to roam the halls and interview anyone on what’s a fishing expedition, you are subject to all kinds of things coming out that you have no control over” …

She said she looked at Justice Department reports to Congress about enforcement actions under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. To her, the communities the Justice Department sued came away with better, less onerous outcomes than those that participated in the investigation and negotiated their agreements. She said she feared Erie County taxpayers would be forced to provide inmates benefits some workers don’t get themselves: dental care, eye care, annual mammograms, regular blood tests, follow-up attention at public expense.

Lawyer Nan L. Haynes, of Buffalo, called Collins’ decision a shame.

“Being unable to afford constitutional rights is not an excuse for not allowing constitutional rights,” said Haynes, who is suing the county on behalf of Craig S. Beatty. Soon after his arraignment in 2005, Beatty went into a diabetic coma when Holding Center personnel denied him his regular doses of insulin. Many people at the Holding Center have been convicted of no crime. Convicted felons have a right to adequate medical treatment, and certainly people who have been arrested and can’t afford bail should be allowed adequate medical care,” she said. “What goes on at the Holding Center should be a source of shame to anyone in Erie County.”

Green said she expects the Justice Department to file a court action in 60 to 90 days.  A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to say Friday what the next move might be.

More at the Buffalo News.

vericatrajkova Inmate Health, NY Erie County