March 30, 2018 | Cheri Gregg | CBS Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Five inmates at Graterford prison have taken their own lives in the past three months. Prison officials have brought in an expert to help.
Listen to the CBS audio news report here →
March 15, 2018 | Samantha Melamed | Philadelphia Daily News
Bobbie London wants answers.
The Parkesburg resident has been trying for a month to find out the truth about what happened to her son, Christopher Gilchrist, who died at Graterford Prison on Feb. 14. London says a coroner informed her that Gilchrist was on 24-hour suicide watch at the time, though the Department of Corrections (DOC) has not confirmed it. Gilchrist, who was 31, used a sheet and towel to hang himself, according to the Montgomery County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“I don’t understand how someone on suicide watch has the time to get that much done,” London said.
Gilchrist’s death was one of four suicides at Graterford in a span of five weeks, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. By comparison, the entire DOC has counted seven suicides per year on average since 2000.
June 26, 2017 | Terrie Morgan-Besecker | The Times-Tribune
Steven Fritz, 44, of Scranton, received hormone medications while incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Houtzdale. She expected to continue the medications when she was incarcerated at the county jail on new theft charges, but the medical staff abruptly stopped the drugs after just three days, she said.
Joseph D’Arienzo, spokesman for the county, declined to discuss the case, citing medical privacy laws. He confirmed the county has no policy regarding hormone treatment for transgenders.
The prison’s denial of treatment is at odds with the state Department of Corrections’ policy regarding hormone treatment for transgenders and likely violates Fritz’s constitutional rights, which could lead to a lawsuit, attorneys for a transgender advocacy group and prisoners rights group said.
June 13, 2017 | Marcia Moore | The Daily Item
Seriously mentally ill inmates at the U.S. penitentiary at Lewisburg are being given word games and Sudoku puzzles instead of treatment and medication, according to a class action lawsuit filed against the federal bureau of prisons.
The suit, filed by the DC Prisoner’s Project of the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, claims prisoners received minimal interaction with counselors, often just a minute or two each week and through cell doors.
Men with lifetime histories of schizophrenia, paranoia, bipolar disorder, depression and other serious mental conditions often receive no treatments at all and are held in cells, often with another inmate, for 23 hours or more a day. Instead of treatment, the suit alleges, these inmates receive Sudoku puzzles, word games and coloring pages.
October 13, 2016 | Anne Maria Barry-Jester | FiveThirtyEight
Salvatore Chimenti already had advanced liver damage from the hepatitis C virus when he filed a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in the summer of 2015. He wanted access to new and expensive drugs that cure the virus in 90 percent or more of people who take them. Because he is an inmate, when the DOC denied him the medication, the only way Chimenti could potentially get it was to sue. “When you’re in prison, you have no other option, this is your only medical provider. You cannot get a second opinion; you can’t pay for it yourself. You are completely under the control of the Department of Corrections and their medical provider,” said Su Ming Yeh, an attorney with the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project who is representing Chimenti in a class-action lawsuit.
September 12, 2016 | Peter Loftus and Gary Fields | The Wall Street Journal
GRATERFORD, Pa.—David Maldonado, an inmate at a Pennsylvania state prison, is one of thousands of convicted criminals with hepatitis C, an infectious disease that is one of the country’s biggest killers. Powerful new drugs on the market could help Mr. Maldonado and cut the chances of it spreading outside prison walls.
The medicines, however, are so expensive, and the problem so widespread, that to treat all sufferers would blow up most prison budgets. List prices for the newer drugs range from $54,000 to $94,000 a person for a typical 12-week course.
Pennsylvania’s corrections department has given the drugs to inmates at high risk of developing liver problems and with low blood-platelet levels. Mr. Maldonado isn’t among them, because his disease isn’t advanced enough to meet the department’s criteria, and he has sued seeking treatment.
September 9, 2016 | CBS Philly | Cherri Gregg
Members of MOVE rallied outside of the Philadelphia Department of Health to protest a recent federal court ruling denying critical Hepatitis C treatment for former death row inmate Mumia Abu Jamal. The ruling raises questions about inmate care.
“Nobody is immune to this kind of travesty of justice,” says Romona Africa, communications director for the MOVE Organization.
She joined concerned family and friends of Mumia Abu Jamal on Wednesday morning in a rally and press conference. The demonstration was made days after a federal district court judge denied Jamal access to critical treatment for his Hepatitis C.
November 3, 2015 | Dana DiFilippo | Philadelphia Daily News
Jamella Parks had been hooked on drugs for nearly three decades before she tried to sneak $68.52 worth of toiletries out of a Logan Rite Aid in January. It was far from her first arrest: Her record is riddled with crimes, mostly misdemeanors like prostitution and shoplifting, she committed to feed an addiction she couldn't shake.
This time, though, the arrest would be her death sentence.
Although she could have been freed on just $300 cash bail, the 43-year-old North Philly woman instead spent nearly six months behind bars before dying, in custody, of cancer.
