While there have been all manner of speculations about how Jeffrey Epstein may have met his death in jail, lawyer Ken White, who has been a federal prosecutor, says that those who think that “jailers could not possibly be so incompetent, cruel, or indifferent as to let such a high-profile prisoner commit suicide” do not realize that the truth may be less sensational but more disturbing, that this kind of death in US prisons is far more common than people think and is due to a culture of neglect, lack of staff, poor training, abuse, and sheer cruelty on the part of those who run these institutions.
White lists 32 cases of inmate deaths or near-deaths and they make for truly depressing reading. Here are just a few.
Andrew Holland died in a restraint chair in San Luis Obispo County, California. He was strapped to the chair, naked, for two days. If you like, you can watch video of the guards laughing as medics try fruitlessly to perform CPR, though I would not recommend it.
…Michael Anthony Kerr died of dehydration, like Thomas, near Raleigh, North Carolina. Kerr-an Army veteran-was off his medications and lay in his own waste for five days before someone figured out he wasn’t eating or drinking. He was handcuffed the whole time; they had to cut off the handcuffs because the lock was encrusted with his feces.
…Kenneth Dalstra killed himself in the Ionia County Jail in Michigan by drinking water for two hours until he died. He was on suicide watch. A guard told him to stop drinking, but he did not.
…Cristobal Solano was arrested for disturbing the peace outside the Key Lodge Motel in Tustin, California. When he resisted a search of his mouth, at least seven guards piled on him, pushed his face into a concrete bunk, kneed him in the back, and sat on him as he screamed “Please, I can’t breathe!” He couldn’t, and he died.
Perhaps the one good thing that may come out of Epstein’s death is that it is when something bad happens to the rich and famous that attention gets focused on the underlying problem. America’s incarceration system is a disgrace and a scandal but nobody cares when poor people suffer and die like this in jail. If Epstein’s death results in even a partial improvement, then in death, his disgusting life would have served at least some purpose.
Matt Bors thinks along the same lines.
The UK has refused to extradite at least two people to the USA based on the inhumane US prison system. Amazingly enough it was Theresa May, when she was Home Secretary who canceled one.
I hear you… still, the most strategically sound thing to do is to put every known associate of Epstein’s on preventive jail.
1- Most of these associates being members of the über-rich, their wealth and conections makes them a massive flight risk. (Does the american justice system consider a person’s ability to meddle in investigations? a sort of “obstruction risk”? cause it should)
2- As bad as the prison system is, the possibility of foul play in Epstein’s death should not be dismissed out of the gate. Any of his associates (including Trump and Bill Clinton) is potentially guilty of murder on top of pedophilia.
3- Put simply, if you get on a plane called the Lolita Express and you are NOT a pedophile, you are so stupid that it should be a crime anyways and that’s the most reasonable presumption of innocence that should be afforded to such individuals.
On the bright side, considering that the list of rich fucks you’d put in jail includes democrat and republican politicians as well as a big swath of potential donors, fixing the jail system may become even easier. If you think a dead Epstein might be a good incentive to improve jails, imagine the incentive that a dead Trump, a dead Clinton or a dead anyone on Epstein’s black book may provide to that end.
I suspect that this is overly optimistic… I get the impression that quite a lot of Americans are actively in favour of poor people suffering and dying under incarceration. You wouldn’t have ended up with both the world’s largest prison population and the most savagely inhumane carceral system in the developed world otherwise.
@ 3 Dunc
I get the impression that quite a lot of Americans are actively in favour of poor people suffering and dying under incarceration.
I think that is a bit harsh. I think that they just don’t care particularly if you have the wrong skin colour or speak the wrong language.
Tell you what, I’ll split the difference -- enough just don’t care that the ones who are actively enthusiastic get their way.
@ 5 Dunc
enough just don’t care that the ones who are actively enthusiastic get their way.
I had to rethink my position and I think you are correct.
Sufficiently advanced ignorance is indistinguishable from malice.
And then there’s this…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Darren_Rainey
jrkrideau @4 On a lot of topics I’d agree with you about the racism, but when it comes to being in favour of the brutal, inhumane treatment of prisoners, a large swath of Americans are admirably colour blind.
Coroner says it was suicide. I still have doubts, but we’ll probably never know. Pity, I wanted to hear the prick name names.
file thirteen:
It was patently preventable suicide. Why wasn’t it prevented? Oh, right, just regular circumstances for the US prison system. One of those things that just happen.
Right.