County denies federal jail allegations, but won’t let the feds take a look

BUFFALO NEWS EDITORIAL
August 2, 2009, 6:03 AM

The people at the top of the food chain in Erie County government could have at least professed some shock and disgust at the horrible conditions described in the U. S. Justice Department’s report on the treatment of inmates at the county’s two jails, and have pledged to make it all right.

But sadly—and typically—the official response has been to circle the wagons and complain that the feds might have exaggerated.

“Much of what is in the report is based on fiction and not reality,” said County Attorney Cheryl A. Green.

Much? If any of what’s contained in the 50-page report is true, then the county attorney, County Executive Chris Collins and County Sheriff Timothy B. Howard should stop complaining about federal interference and start turning the county’s jails into something better than what the feds portray as a Rust Belt franchise of Abu Ghraib.

The inmates interviewed by federal officials likely had no love for their jailers. They might well have been tempted to exaggerate, even invent, some incidents to whet the appetites of the investigators.

But the litany of alleged abuses—a pregnant inmate thrown to the floor, prisoners taken out of view of security cameras so they could be beaten by guards, prisoners pushed to fight one another—adds up to such an ugly pattern that the only proper response from county officials would be a pledge of a full review and specific reforms.

Green and others say many of the issues pointed out through the years have been or are being addressed. If that’s the case, the county seems to be working awfully hard to hide that fact from outside eyes.

If the Justice Department report had dropped on the county out of the blue, it would have been bad enough. But lawsuits over jail conditions go well back into the 1990s. The New York State Commission of Correction and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care have pointed out deficiencies in jail operations that never seem to be fixed.

Over and over, the response of county officials has been to pass the buck, complain about unfunded mandates and imply that accusing inmates are only telling outside investigators what they want to hear or trolling for big legal settlements. There are nuggets of truth in all of that, and Sheriff Howard does at least have the excuse that the executive and the Legislature have control over his budget.

But there is no excuse for any civilized community running a jail that meets, even in a small way, the descriptions of the downtown Buffalo Holding Center and Alden’s County Correctional Facility that over and over are put before us.

At least County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz has been pointing out the fact that poorly run jails aren’t cheap. They lead to very expensive lawsuits.

And the tough-on-crime argument—jail shouldn’t be a vacation—is both thuggish and irrelevant. Cruel and unusual punishment violates the Constitution, not to mention basic human decency. A great number of those held in the county’s lock-ups are only accused of a crime, and may not be guilty of anything other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Next time, it could just as easily be you.

And, treated the way the report describes, people who aren’t hardened criminals when they go into jail might well be when they come out.

Stonewall should describe what surrounds a prison, not the official reaction to such damning accusations.

© 2009 The Buffalo News