Category: News and Views
Tulsa World, Oklahoma USA
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
State opens first prison accessible for disabled
By ANGEL RIGGS World Capitol Bureau
Now in Business: Handicapped Accessible Prison: State opens first prison for
disabled
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Department of Corrections officials this week began moving
several of the state's disabled inmates into Oklahoma's first
handicapped-accessible prison unit.
The federally funded unit at Joseph Harp Correctional Facility near
Lexington will house 262 prisoners. The DOC plans to move in 40 inmates each
week until the facility is full.
Dubbed the "ADA facility" because of its compliance with the Americans with
Disabilities Act, the unit is accessible for inmates who use wheelchairs and
those who are visually impaired.
"We will fill it up extremely quickly," said Justin Jones, DOC director. The
state currently has enough inmates who use wheelchairs to fill the unit, he
said.
However, the facility also will house inmates being treated for cancer, on
dialysis or recovering from major surgeries, Jones said. The prison unit
also will accommodate offenders with dementia or those who are in the early
stages of Alzheimer's disease.
Inmates will be trained to work as orderlies in the facility, providing
services such as cleaning bedpans and lifting patients, Jones said.
Although the facility was constructed using federal funds, it will be
operated using state money. The DOC's 2008 budget calls for
$1.4 million to operate and staff the facility.
The unit is contained in a secure, separate single-story building on the
prison grounds.
Its shower stalls and restrooms are designed to accommodate wheelchairs.
The majority of the unit's beds are contained in an "open-bay" area.
However, 32 large cells will house four offenders each and are large enough
to accommodate medical equipment, such as oxygen tanks.
Each cell also has two buttons that offenders can use to call for emergency
help.
The unit has a secure medication room, an exam room, and is ambulance
accessible.
A dozen orderlies will live in the facility, said Debbie Dorris, the
warden's assistant at Joseph Harp Correctional Center. The orderlies will
receive special training to help care for the inmates, she said.
They will not be able to access medications or medical equipment such as
syringes, needles or surgical instruments, according to the DOC.
Inmates will be transferred to the facility from across the state, Dorris
said.
The new unit comes as the DOC faces crisis-level overcrowding in its
prisons. Oklahoma's prison population also is aging, an effect, some say, of
tough-on-crime policies enacted and a requirement that certain offenders
serve 85 percent of their sentences before being eligible for parole.
In the past 15 years, the average age of Oklahoma's prisoners has risen from
32 years to nearly 37 years old, according to the Oklahoma Criminal Justice
Resource Center.
The number of inmates 45 or older has quadrupled since 1990, while the total
prison population has nearly doubled, according to the OCJRC.
I'm not really sure how I feel about this. I mean it sounds like a kind of hospital, the difference being that you're locked in. so is it a psych ward for the disabled? I understand that there would be difficulties for a disabled person in a normal prison, but so what? if they did the crime, let them suffer. I suppose the point could be made that by putting them with everyone else, they could be being made to suffer more than the general population of such establishments, but I'm sure we can find an arguement for just about every situation here.
That's disgusting imprisoning people with Alzhiemers, barbaric to say the least
I agree with Kev on this one. You might think me very heartless but if they committed a crime, let them suffer. I know of this one guy who tried to blow up his house with his wife and child in it but it went wrong and the guy became blind as a result of the explosion. I don't think he should be allowed special treatment just because of his disability. In my oppinion, anyone who commits horrible crimes like that doesn't deserve special prisons to accomindate their disability! And as for locking up people with Alzheimer's, maybe they got it while carying out their sentence in prison? I'm wouldn't know though.
Michelle
hmmm, maybe our friendly stabber should have ended up here instead of at home.
Agree with Shana, you took the words right out of my mouth..... lol. Bullshit gobshite, it makes no difference what's wrong with them. Totally agree with Kev. I'm sorry, but if you wanna play the disabled card and you need caring for, more so than any able bodied person, sighted person, whatever, you should have thought about that in the first place before you broke the sodding law! Do not get me started on this one..........
I think it's a good idea. I mean, here in california there are so many reports of non-violent criminals being thrown in together with those who have murdered or raped; the corrections officials don't always do a good job of separating them. Some sick inmates have died while encarcerated, and their families file lawsuits against the prison. And just think about it for a second. Do you think uneducated criminals will understand why a fellow inmate who has some mental disorder is behaving oddly? No! They'll probably shank him a hundred times or something. Don't think I'm a softy on some of the bastards who are in there, I mean, at times when I hear about a child molester being beaten to death by prisoners for a period of an hour until guards find the body, I honestly feel that justice has been served. But due to the overpopulation of prisons, it's often hard to medicate those who have some medical condition. When a person commits a crime, his/her only punishment should be the loss of freedom, or death for those whose crimes call for it. Of course rehabilitation falls somewhere in there, but I guess most criminals aren't rehabilitated anyway. Anything beyond what the offender's punishment is, such as mistreatment from other inmates, coerced prostitution, etc, is something that corrections officials ought to eliminate. Can't they be sued for not preventing such situations? I'm pretty sure they have been in the past. But obviously they don't do this otherwise prison gang politics would not exist. In there, you gotta stick to some group if you want to stay alive, it doesn't matter if you're 100 percent physically fit or a cripple. A prison that is accessible for such inmates is a good idea, and maybe more should be added into the US prison system. I mean, it would reduce the stress guards face by having to escort nurses to the cells of sick inmates; just imagine the risk of a hostage situation. Okay, so maybe that's a little exaggerated, but I'm pretty sure many risks do arise while guards are trying to be tough and caring at the same time. But still, I don't think it's right to have non-violent inmates, especially the disabled and vulnerable, together with those who can take advantage of them. Maybe this way too a criminal wouldn't escape his punishment by saying that he's sick or requiring 24-hour medical assistance. I just think it's a good idea.
what's next I ask you
I agree iwth you rascolnacov. Do the crime do the time of course, but make it fare, it's not like they've been moved into a nice 5 star accomedation. I think that perhaps the corectional fascilities in all countries should take mroe steps to rehabilitate their criminals than just punnishing them, just look at the reoffenders rate, the system is obviously not working.
hello Ihave mix feeling on this one. I mean have you see the sign a sharer? I know that they have do some thing very bad to pp. but they shore have some help. I gese.
OK, I understand everyone's feelings about this. After all, criminals violated the rights of others, why should they have rights themselves? But, I think it might be a good idea, if only for this reason. God knows that the court systems here in the US go through appeal after appeal before a criminal is sentenced, or even during his sentence. If we don't make accessible prisons, and a convicted criminal needs a wheelchair or some other facilities, that could be used to overturn a conviction. You know, get the judge/jury's pity up. "Oh, how can we possibly make this poor disabled person live in a facility not meant for them?" So, you simply disarm that argument by having such prisons as they just built in Oklahoma. Just my thoughts.
Agreed! It is a wheelchair user's right to move around in a wheelchair. It is a blind person's right to use a cane or a guide dog. The fact that they committed a crime does not, ever, remove these basic rights. What would you do Danielle? Say that someone in a wheelchair who got caught doing hard drugs and goes to prison for it should not be allowed to have their wheelchair? That's completely pathettic! That would be like chopping off their legs, on top of locking them up!
Do you really think a totally blind person in prison would be allowed a cane? I don't think so! A hollow stick that could be used to conceal drugs? Or could be filled with sand or some other dense substance to make the cane incredibly heavy so that it could be used as a weapon? And yet, if disabled people are to be punnished like anyone else, you have to take that litterally! That means whilst if they do the crime they do the time, it also means you cannot take away any more rights from a disabled person than you would from a non-disabled person. preventing a wheelchair user from having their chair in prison with them, or preventing a blind person from having a mobility ade such as a cane, would be denying basic rights to disabled people and this would be over and above the normal restrictions that prisons impose on inmates and therefore unfare.
For this reason, a specially built facility would not only be safer for disabled prisoners who would more likely be obvious targets in an ordinary prison setting than non-disabled offenders, but all the staff and inmates would be living and working in an environment designed specifically to accomedate wheelchairs, to be navigable without the use of a cane necessarily etc.
Matt
Wow the Zone has a stabber! Now I've read it all! That's scary! I feel sorry for the Alzhimer's patience caus my grandmother had it! When I was a child I'd go with my mom as she tried to take care of my grandmother! Yep they should have a place for disabled prisoners!
Keep in mind that there are many non violent crimes such as tax avasion etc that can get one thrown into prison. And if someone is doing drugs and they get caught, that does not automaticly make them some kind of demon with no rights to proper care etc. and, people do make mistakes. I'm not justifying crime, just pointing out that we are all flawed. I think this is fair as far as their human rights are concerned. some laws, especially in the south of the US are very harsh and carry lengthy jail sentances. If someone develops a mental disease such as dimentia, to the point that they are deemed to no longer be a threat to society, they should be released. anyways, just my two cents. I'm not visiting this topic again now that i've stated my views. thanks for reading.
Yeah the last poster is right about laws being harsh here in the south!
I would agree that it would not be right throwing or keeping a disabled person with all the other prisoners, as they may be much easier targets for abuse than the nondisabled one. At first I thought a disabled prison would be good for this reason, but I discussed it with my mom (who used to be a deputy sherriff at our county jail), and she says that there is actually a medical section of the prison and that's where a disabled person would be kept. So if that is the case, then the separate prison for disabled people seems unnecessary.
I always womdered where the disabled people were kept in jail!