Prisoners neglected to death?

THE NEW York State attorney general's office is investigating a for-profit medical provider in correctional facilities across the state after a series of prisoner deaths.

Correctional Medical Care Inc. (CMC) is a Pennsylvania-based company that provides medical care to 12 county jails in upstate New York. Between 2009 and 2011, at least nine people incarcerated in the county jail system died--four by suicide, and the rest due to lack of care for ailments ranging from drug and alcohol withdrawal to diabetes.

CMC is the largest private contract provider of medical services to jails in the state. Each county reports paying millions for the contract to each facility. The accusations against CMC include "failing to follow its own drug withdrawal and detoxification policies, for ignoring signs of mental illness and for failing to treat some illnesses," according to the Associated Press. The company has also been accused of "gross negligence and gross incompetence" according to state investigators.

According to the Albany Times Union, a former social worker, Kim McAndrew, corroborates these accusations. While she was employed by CMC, she states that she was "forced to see between 19 and 25 inmates on a regular basis, even though she could only reasonably see seven or eight."

In addition, McAndrew reported that non-licensed medical staff were responsible for keeping track of inmates' medications--including one non-licensed employee who had been fired from a Tioga County jail after an inmate suicide. After speaking out against the treatment of inmates, McAndrew was fired.

According to its website, CMC "was founded with the exclusive mission to provide the highest quality healthcare to inmates of correctional facilities in the most cost-effective manner for its clients." In the wake of the deaths, there are questions about whether at CMC, like other for-profit health care systems, "cost-effectiveness" supersedes other concerns to the detriment of people.

UPSTATE NEW York is part of the original "rust belt." The idyllic setting is punctuated by small cities and towns that often resemble places like Detroit and Cleveland in their level of economic devastation. Once a center of manufacturing, railroads and agriculture, the chaotic nature of capitalism has left a majority of rust belt cities economically bereft for decades.

Although upstate New York has long been a playground for the wealthiest Americans, the people who live in the upstate region are mostly working class. Unemployment is high, with some counties reporting over 11 percent unemployment according to the Bureau of Labor statistics. City budgets are stretched thin, leaving little or no public transportation in an area where being without a car often means an inability to report to work.

With few economic opportunities and an outrageous cost of living, many people fall through the cracks and directly in to the criminal justice system.

In tandem with other austerity measures, funding for mental health services has been on the chopping block for the last 25 years. Upstate New York once had an expansive and relatively effective public mental health system. Years of budget cuts in the state and counties have led to the closure of programs for those with mental health and addiction issues, leaving many poor and working people with no place to turn.

In Dutchess County, retired clinical psychologist Richard DePass writes for the Poughkeepsie Journal: "The privatization of mental health care services as well as the marked reduction of support services available to those with serious psychiatric disturbances have led to a mental health system that is broken and often unsafe."

DePass also states that currently high-risk patients (those who have attempted suicide) wait over 24 hours to be seen by a physician. They are then shuffled to privatized clinics where they are only seen "every two to three weeks for half-hour sessions." Additionally, the employee turnover at these clinics is very high due to low wages and burdensome caseloads, so patients end up meeting with new therapists again and again, increasing the likelihood that they will discontinue treatment.

Meanwhile, Dutchess County (the site of one of the inmate deaths under investigation) is proposing a multi-million dollar county jail expansion, citing the need for more beds, although 80 percent of inmates are there on charges related to some kind of substance abuse or mental hygiene disorder. With no alternative treatment system in place, the county jail system has become a default holding area for those in the region dealing with drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness.

In the wake of the allegations against CMC, this becomes particularly disturbing .

If there is money to fund a jail expansion, a jail that is serving as a de-facto mental health facility, then there should be money to fund actual mental health care facilities and services. However, the twisted logic of capitalism prevails--instead of providing preventative health care services to the upstate region, the burden of caring for those suffering from depression and substance abuse is shifted to the criminal justice system, where a for-profit health care company is allegedly neglecting people to death.

The far-reaching effects of austerity measures are being felt across the nation, in the form of school closures, public employee furloughs and layoffs, clinic closures, and reduced social services for the most vulnerable people in our society. Instead of building more jails and prisons, we need to build a movement to resist austerity and punitive "justice." Otherwise, under the "care" of for-profit health systems, the body count will only grow higher.