Medical abuse “inside” is rampant but we have policy makers working to gradually change that by cultivating relationships with the Department of Correction (DOC) and lovely commissioner Kathy Dennehy, a former nurse. Many legislators respect her and insist that the conditions in State lock-ups will change if we only conduct more studies, more task forces, more confabs. Millions of dollars, years of wasted time, destruction of physical & mental health continue unabated but the liberal reformers are happy with incremental (glacial) change. In fact they deliberately ignore the voices of those directly affected and the families.

After Tony's parole violation from Hampden County—home to the liberals' sweetheart Sheriff Ashe, his cronies and D.A. Bennett—they decided to send him to the SuperMax at Shirley to await trial.  Bennett wanted to use “three strikes” law to give Tony life in prison. His crime was impulsively swiping change and dollar bills from the counter of a convenience store, while “high” and in his wheelchair. No threats, unarmed—and unlegged!

At the SuperMax Tony developed massive bedsores (4 x 8 centimeters). Mass Correctional Legal Services was now closely involved. Months of complaints and advocacy did little. Colostomy had to be performed. Tony was sent to the Shattuck, a Dept of Public Health (DPH) hospital with a unit for DOC inmates. He deteriorated there—eventually needed plastic surgery. This was done at UMass Medical Center, but outside the auspices of the criminal “correctional” health care program. Tony gained weight and color back.

Then he was shipped to Shattuck again. Within 48 hours his condition was deteriorating. I spoke with him. He was disciplined for refusing to comply with orders to get in his bed. The bed was causing the post-surgical site to leak and bleed. But DOC and criminal med staff punished him.

About ten days ago Tony was to be returned to the SuperMax to await trial, DA Bennett pushing for a life sentence. I'd spoken to him a couple of days before.

His mom called me 90 minutes ago say that Tony is dead. She was told by Superintendent Anderson he committed suicide by hanging himself with a shower curtain. In MCI-Shirley, a place with 24 hour surveillance? Shades of Geoghan and Kelly Jo Griffen, folks! If you don't understand now that this state murders with impunity and with the complicity of the Legislature and liberal policy makers—WHEN WILL YOU GET IT?  How many investigations? How many task forces?

This morning Senator Jarrett Barrios told a radio news station that he was enraged about Tony's death. This is complete bull shit! He told us that there was nothing he could do. He needed to keep working with DOC so he could continue to get information about other happenings. His rude aide, Dede Edmondson, responding last month to the urgent request of Andrea Hornbein (his constituent) that he visit Tony at the Shattuck Hospital, replied—to paraphrase—we can't do that. It would appear biased against the DOC.

Barrios does not assist his constituents who request help for incarcerated relatives. We have several documented examples, including the time I emailed him with urgent message about the death of Kelly Jo Griffen—"deleted without reading". I have that on file.

NO MORE COLLABORATING WITH THESE HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS, FOLKS! END IT NOW!!! —Susan  Mortimer

from Andrea Hornbein

This morning Susan received a phone call from Lorraine the mother of prisoner awaiting trial Anthony Garafolo. Superintendent Anderson informed Anthony's mother that her son, a prisoner with paraplegia, hung himself in his cell at MCI-Shirley with a plastic shower curtain. While Anthony was awaiting trial on a parole violation at the SuperMax Souza Baranowski (SBCC), months of medical abuse and neglect created bed sores, one of which was 4 by 8 centimeters deep and was decubitus—down to the bone. After a week in Intensive Care at a Boston hospital he was sent back to the DOC hospital unit at the Department of Public Health Lemuel Shattuck Hospital where his condition again deteriorated due to medical abuse and neglect.

MCLS was involved from the time he was sent to an outside hospital (see “Prison critics rip medical care,” Boston Globe, 12/9/05) Anthony was then sent to the public UMass Medical Center (not to be confused with UMass Medical Memorial “Correctional” Health Care) where he received excellent care and plastic surgery to create a skin flap to cover over the open wounds. Then prison officials repeatedly called on the UMass plastic surgery unit to return Anthony to DOC jail auspices. The reason for this is that the care costs more. Within 48 hours of his return to the Shattuck the wound site was bleeding and oozing liquid. Anthony told Susan that the surgical site had "bottomed out" and the skin flap was tearing open.

At that point there was advocacy for Anthony on several fronts: legal, medical and concerned family and friends. Anthony was experiencing enough pain and distress to ask Susan to call the hospital and the doctor. Susan was given several reasons why she could not visit when she call the Shattuck to make an appointment. The last time she tried to schedule a visit DOC staff told Susan that "inmate Garafolo is awaiting action on a disciplinary infraction." The DOC also took the television set out of his room pending administrative action.   

When I called the Shattuck on Anthony's behalf I was rudely informed that whatever Anthony had said was not true. At that time I also called chair of Public Safety Committee Senator Barrios office, requesting that he visit Anthony at the Shattuck in order to see for himself the situation and bring about a humane remedy. I never received a phone call back. What did happen however, was that I saw his aide Dede Edmunson in the hall the day Susan and I were up leafleting at Sheriff DiPaola's May 24th “jail crisis” briefing. She told me that Barrios could not go visit a prisoner as that would give the appearance of bias!   Senator Barrios, as chair of the Legislature's Public Safety Committee, is charged by the citizens of Massachusetts with direct oversight of “Corrections.” In the meeting I was able to get with him, which Jason and I attended, he said he couldn't do anything about these situations. He explained that he would call the DOC to ask about a particular situation, e.g. death of Kelly Jo Griffen; Jason; Nancy, who was recently raped; Rodriguez who committed suicide.... and the DOC would give their story and that would be the end of that until the next tragedy. He said that he was not willing to put pressure on them because he wanted to continue to get information from them. (Please see the letter below for a perspective on the “information” Barrios gets.)  By law Massachusetts legislators can enter the state prisons anytime day or night and go wherever they wish without interference.

April letter on Shirley lock-down to Public Safety Committee    April 8, 2006 To:  The Joint Committees on the Judiciary, Public Safety and Homeland Security    Re:  Status of the MCI Shirley Medium Lock-down  

Dear Committee Members:   We are writing to strongly urge you to end the lock-down at MCI-Shirley immediately and to return it to Level 4 Security. Since its construction, Shirley has been labeled as Level 4 but historically restrictions there have been far greater than all other "medium" facilities in the Commonwealth.   A prisoner's brother reports the following: The heat has been turned off in all housing units. Last week water was shut off for 24 hours for yet another "shakedown" (search for contraband) in Housing Units C-1 and C-2.

Guards have begun to ration toilet paper below the miserly normal rate of a single roll per week. Religious services have been sharply curtailed. This past Sunday was the first time visits have been allowed in 30 days.

Visitors were treated disrespectfully and visits were ended early and abruptly, without advance notice. Families were ordered to leave immediately.

It appears the DOC is seeking to justify the lock-down by deliberately provoking the prisoners. We believe these gratuitous actions by administration and the guards are intended to intensify pressure and foment disturbances in an attempt to justify the DOC's actions on March 2.    Just prior to the lock down, the situation was reported as peaceful by the prisoner, The Herald, and by Senator Barrios' aide Dede Edmondson. Given this corroboration, we urge you to question the “high ranking” DOC administrator's response to inquiry by a colleague of yours, that the warden was surrounded and threatened by a circle of prisoners, or that weapons were at issue.   It is more likely that the warden preferred not to be accountable to 200 unhappy prisoners in “The Yard,” who were about to be affected by unwarranted policy changes made without oversight and contrary to the Governor's Commission on Corrections Reform (GCCR) recommendations.   Prisons are places where the state can and does exert total control over those in its charge. Discipline has been harshly enforced at the slightest infraction. A threatening protest would be an unlikely occurrence. The 15 “Lugged” prisoners should be interviewed by independent entities before they are returned to Shirley Medium.

This process is essential to determine what actually transpired.   The discrepancy in information should cause one to ask; (1) whether it is advisable to believe that DOC Administrators are always truthful and (2) whether it is accurate to assume that prisoners are always lying.   Prisoner stories and testimony must not automatically be discounted. Under lock-down conditions prisoners report remarkably similar chronologies of abusive treatment even as the DoC has kept them from communicating with each other.   Friends and family members working to protect prisoner's human rights, including well-regarded former prisoners, can confirm for you that torture, abuse and subsequent cover-ups are systemic. Shackling and cuffing of injured and sick prisoners, the use of restraint chairs for punishment and applying choke holds to cuffed prisoners fall deep into the territory of cruel and inhumane treatment. Yet these things happen regularly in Massachusetts prisons. Human Rights organizations consider the use of these restraints to be torture.

Massachusetts inmates have repeatedly won suits and monetary damages against violent guards, whose worst instincts are encouraged in the “tough on crime” environment. Solitary confinement and sensory deprivation are routinely used for extra-judicial punishment. SuperMax “correctional” facilities are specifically designed for round-the-clock sensory deprivation. The existence of such prisons contravenes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international conventions. Common sense indicates what psychological testing has repeatedly shown; many prisoners are permanently impaired by sensory deprivation. The alarming increase in the number of suicides and the prevalence of rape should be cause for action to bring abuses to a halt, not for providing funding for yet another costly investigation.   DOC policy permits the interviewing of prisoners only when guards are present and when the Department deems the news report will reflect favorably upon it. Now DOC administrators have given you information on the cause of the March 2nd lock-down, which stands in direct contradiction to that in the public domain.   You've been following the release of the GCCR/Harshbarger Committee reports and recommendations. There is a push for less restrictive classification and security levels. You know that Scott Harshbarger resigned because there's no political will to fix the problems. Until the political will exists to stop abuse of prisoners and the taxpayers, officials will use time consuming, biased investigations to distract from implementing real change. Taxpayers foot the bill for these self-investigations.    The lock-down at MCI-Shirley must end immediately, as must the imposition of Superintendent Thompson’s edict of reduced out-of-cell time. It behooves committee members to visit Shirley-Medium. As legislators you have the freedom to visit Massachusetts prisons at any time, indeed you have an obligation to do so.   We would welcome a meeting with you.   Sincerely,   Andrea Hornbein    Susan M. Mortimer   [attached was the text of a letter from a Shirley prisoner, postmarked March 6th, regarding the month-old lock-down. Also attached were two subsequent Boston Herald articles.]