Westchester County officials were told in 2007 that the U. S. Justice Department would investigate their jail, where an officer years earlier beat a mentally ill inmate into a coma and caused his death.

The Westchester jailers did not bar the Justice Department inspectors when they arrived in February 2008, nor did they insist that the county’s attorneys shadow them during their three-day visit.

Instead, Westchester County’s Department of Corrections cooperated with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division throughout its inquiry.

Now, Westchester County might be further along than Erie County in addressing the inadequate and unconstitutional conditions described in a Justice Department report.

“We are working together on a collaborative effort with them,” said Justin D. Pruyne, special assistant to Westchester County’s corrections commissioner. “We wanted to show them the facility. We didn’t have anything to hide.”

The Justice Department this week concluded that the Westchester County Jail in Valhalla has failed to protect its inmates from harm. Its officers have slammed inmates’ heads against walls, the report said, and used far more force than appeared necessary when incidents were reviewed on videotape. The report faulted the medical care and mental health care available at the jail, too.

“The conditions at the Westchester County Jail are woefully inadequate,” a Civil Rights Division attorney said. “Every member of our society deserves to have his or her civil rights respected, and Westchester County has failed to adhere to this ideal.”

The Civil Rights Division in July wrote similar complaints about Erie County’s Holding Center in downtown Buffalo and its Correctional Facility in Alden: Heads slammed against walls. Deputies beating inmates in an elevator chosen because it had no security camera. Inmate fights that deputies watched but ignored, or actually incited. Poor medical care and mental health care. Inadequate efforts to prevent suicide.

The Civil Rights Division called the administrative effort by Sheriff Timothy B. Howard’s Jail Management Division “woefully inadequate” and said that it has led to a “pattern of serious harm to inmates, including death.”

Unlike Westchester, Erie County has resisted the federal investigation. On the advice of Erie County Attorney Cheryl A. Green, County Executive Chris Collins and the sheriff barred the Justice Department inspectors in 2008 unless a county attorney could trail them and attend interviews with jail personnel and inmates.

When the Justice Department transferred inmates under federal control to other facilities for interviews, Green tracked down several of them and had them reveal their testimony.

She told the Justice Department that it could file a lawsuit. That way, it could gain court-supervised access to the facilities.

The Justice Department sued.

Green moved to dismiss the lawsuit.

Collins, Green and Howard cast the Justice Department probe as an assault on Erie County taxpayers.

“Erie County will not be bullied by the Civil Rights Division to provide hotel room standards for people in our facilities,” Collins said in October.

Green’s research told her that communities that forced the Justice Department to sue them under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act fared better than those that negotiated improvement plans for their jails.

Even though another large New York county has opted to cooperate with a Justice Department investigation, the Collins administration still considers it better to fight back.

“The county attorney and her team did an extensive amount of research comparing localities that allowed the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division unfettered access to their facilities versus those that did not and the resulting expense to local taxpayers,” said Collins administration spokesman Grant Loomis.

“It became quickly apparent to the county attorney that defending the county against the baseless allegations leveled by the DOJ was the best course of action for Erie County and its taxpayers,” he said.

Westchester officials felt differently.

“To be in a confrontation situation with the federal government, we felt, was not in our best interest,” Pruyne said.

While the county’s appointed corrections commissioner, Joseph K. Spano, said in a statement that he disagrees with the Justice Department’s ultimate conclusions, he predicted that during the “ongoing cooperative process” he could convince the federal officials that the vast majority of deficiencies have been remedied.

Some Erie County officials feel that Erie County should cooperate with both the Department of Justice and the State Commission of Correction. The state commission polices New York’s local jails and recently sued to force upgrades at the Holding Center.

“I have said all along we should be cooperating with federal and state investigators,” County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz said. “A contentious environment is not going to benefit the county in the long run because in all likelihood, we are going to have to reach some agreement with the State Commission of Correction and the Department of Justice. And it is going to cost the county more in the long run to fight this out.”

Copyright 2009, The Buffalo News