NEW ORLEANS (CN) - Ten people say in a federal class action that conditions inside Orleans Parish Prison are so vile they create a "public safety crisis that affects the entire City of New Orleans" - so dangerous that the federal government will no longer house its prisoners there.
The federal government last week withdrew its per diem funding for the prison, according to the complaint. The defendants "previously received a per diem from the federal government, but last week the U.S. Marshals announced that they have pulled all of their prisoners from OPP [Orleans Parish Prison] due to concerns about conditions and safety," the complaint states.
The class, of inmates and people who will be inmates, says most people incarcerated in Orleans Parish Prison are pre-trial detainees.
"Individuals housed at the jail are at imminent risk of serious harm. Rapes, sexual assaults, and beatings are commonplace throughout the facility. Violence regularly occurs at the hands of sheriffs' deputies, as well as other prisoners. The facility is full of homemade knives, or 'shanks.' People living with serious mental illnesses languish without treatment, left vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. These conditions have created a public safety crisis that affects the entire City of New Orleans."
Conditions are so bad that "a 2009 findings letter by the United States Department of Justice concluded that conditions in Orleans Parish Prison are unconstitutional. Violations found included inadequate protection from harm, including specifically inadequate classification and staffing. The DOJ also found inadequate mental health and medical care, including staffing and an express finding of a failure to follow-up on mental health issues at intake screening," the complaint states.
It adds: "Recent Department of Health and Hospital (DHH) budget cuts have made OPP the largest psychiatric unit in the City of New Orleans. National statistics indicate that 64 percent of incarcerated people suffer from mental illness, and Orleans Parish's numbers are higher."
The class claims: "Sheriff [Marlin] Gusman demonstrates deliberate indifference to the basic rights of the people housed at OPP by implementing constitutionally deficient security, staffing, classification and mental health policies and practices."
For instance: "Upon admission to OPP, defendants have a policy of suspending medication for 30 days, and sometimes longer. This makes people living with mental illness particularly susceptible to abuse, because symptoms of their mental illness begin to manifest acutely when they are denied medication. Unsurprisingly, this practice causes some individuals to experience suicidal ideation.
"Suicidal prisoners with mental health needs are transferred to a direct observation cell, in which they are held almost naked for days. Once they no longer express a desire to injure themselves, they then are transferred to the psychiatric tiers - where they are locked down in their cells for 23 hours a day and deprived of mental health interventions. People living there are not allowed to go outside or visit with their families. Overhead lights are on 24 hours per day, and the tier contains actively psychotic people living on the ground in overcrowded cells. Deputies do not walk the tiers. Rape is rampant. The conditions have been well documented, by the U.S. Department of Justice, the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act Commission, the U.S. Marshals, the media, by individual civil lawsuits and by motions in criminal cases. In spite of widespread public knowledge about the conditions within the facility, the defendants have failed to correct known deficiencies, and, indeed, recently opened an additional 400 bed temporary detention facility.
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