Public plan for decent health care for people inside the jail
Expediting FREE Phone calls for families with incarcerated loved ones
Thanks to everyone who contact Matthew Golden, Metro Chief of Public Services, who oversees Corrections about the tragic and unacceptable deaths in the Jail
In a stakeholder’s meeting on January 14th, Chief Golden: * Acknowledged the “horrible” loss of the five human lives. * Announced that the Mayor added $2 million to the $8 million WellPath Health contract and hired an in-house medical doctor to monitor their services. * Referred to a new data dashboard being developed to track overcrowding in the Jail, but did not say when the information will be made public.
While Chief Golden responded to some of our concerns, there is still much to do to advance the humanity and transparency of LMDC.
Community mural in the Exit Lobby made by families with incarcerated loved ones, incarcerated artists, LMDC staff members and community groups led by visual artist Joyce Odgen and photographer Mary Yates.
Between Nov 29th and Jan 1st four people died while in the custody of Louisville Metro Department of Corrections. On Sunday, January 9th, LMDC announced a fifth death but has not yet named the person. Five deaths in Louisville Metro Department of Corrections cannot be excused or overlooked.
Take action now and contact Matthew Golden, Metro Chief of Public Services, who oversees Corrections. Call: 502-574-2003 Email: https://louisvilleky.wufoo.com/forms/contact-matthew-golden/ Post mail: 527 W Jefferson St. Louisville, KY 40202
Tell him to: Publicly acknowledge the loss of these human lives and the impact on their families and our community.
Conduct a review of WellPath Health’s $8 million contract with LMDC within one week, and present a plan with designated resources to prevent further deaths.
Direct and assist LMDC to make the safety and health of all people under their care their first priority, including new options such as community partnerships.
Expedite the new contract for FREE phone and video calls from LMDC, which has been delayed until January 15th. Free phone calls are essential for families to know the health status of their loved ones. Because of racial inequities in who is arrested, booked, and sentenced, Black children and families are disproportionately impacted.
For more information on prison phone and video calls, visit here.“ In Memoriam: My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” -Archbishop Desmond Tutu To remember the four identified who lost their lives in our Jail, we say their names: Kenneth Hall, age 59 Rickitta Smith, age 34 Stephanie “Cookie” Dunbar, age 48 Garry Wetherill, age 41
Research demonstrates that regular contact is crucial to an incarcerated person’s mental health during confinement, as well as their ability to successfully reintegrate upon release. Providing free telephone calls is not a solution to over-incarceration, but is a key to maintaining contact with families and friends. (Learn more: The Hill: Importance of ongoing contact for prisoners).
Current costs of telephone calls and projected costs for video calls set by Securus Technologies, a multi-billion dollar for-profit corporation, are unfair and prohibitive for families. Locally and nationally, the high costs of prison and jail phone calls drive families and friends into debt. (Learn more: When Phone Calls Send Families Into Debt).
A new money-making mode now being proposed by Securus is the digitization of mail to confined people. Letters and photos sent to prisoners would be converted to email for surveillance purposes. Written correspondence is more important now than ever with the cessation of all visiting, and the only alternative for families and friends who cannot afford the cost of phone calls. Moreover, a large percentage of people in the Louisville Jail are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of any charge, so should not be subject to surveillance. (Learn more: Slate: Prisons Are Increasingly Banning Physical Mail).
In-Person Visiting As Soon As Safely Possible
From 2008 through March 2020, LFJA’s Special Project Team created art with families in the video lobby in the main jail complex each week. During that time, with no in-person visiting opportunities available, families often waited 2-3 hours for a 20-minute video monitor session. The Special Project Team witnessed 50-100 (and sometimes more) caregivers and children enduring long waits in the basement of the Hall of Justice to see their loved ones during the weekly two-hour artmaking activities.
Families and friends want and deserve in-person contact with their incarcerated loved ones. Research shows that strong family and social connections are important keys to successful re-entry for the person who is incarcerated, and make a difference for the well-being of their loved ones, especially children.
Be The Change You Want to See!
Metro Council took a big step forward in June by approving the 2021-22 Metro Budget with the requirement that the LMDC discontinue generating revenue from phone calls after December 31st. Now, LMDC and Metro Council can go beyond banning revenue from phone calls and begin creating system changes in communications that recognize the health and well-being of people and families impacted by incarceration.
Now is the time to break the silence, change the narrative, and engage your neighbors, friends, faith and justice communities, and elected officials in re-thinking incarceration in our city. The conditions in our jail can be changed because it is under local jurisdictions. Here’s how:
LMDC’s current phone contract expires in January 2022. The terms of any new communications contracts should include a public comment period before the contract is approved.
Contact your elected Metro Council member: Email a Council Member | LouisvilleKY.gov. Let them know you support families over profit and safe and healthy communications between incarcerated people and their loved ones.
Community-based nonprofits and service organizations can support families with incarcerated loved ones by providing physical and mental health care, basic needs, educational supplies, peer mentoring and job opportunities.
The above community mural, named “The Passage,” in the Exit Lobby of the Louisville Metro Jail portrays a bridge to the outside, images of loved ones, connections with nature, winds of change, prayers, and peace.
The following letter was written by the Louisville Family Justice Advocates Work Team (Annette Bridges, Leslie Clements, Judi Jennings, Shelton McElroy, LaTonya McNeal, Tony Newberry, Julia Richerson, Savvy Shabazz, All Of Us Or None) and submitted to Louisville Metro Council on June 6, 2021 to call for free phone calls in the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections facility while visitation is suspended due to COVID-19.
Dear Metro Council:
We must acknowledge the humanity of incarcerated individuals and their loved ones because the conditions in which we are born, live, learn, work, play, worship and age have a profound impact on health. And social connectiveness is a key determinant to living a healthy life and healthy families make healthy communities which is something we should all desire (Massoglia & Remster, 2019; Western & McLanhan, 2000). In order to ensure incarcerated individuals and their loved ones are able to experience a sense of social connectiveness and realize the positive recidivism outcomes we all hope to achieve, we recommend the following minimum standards for visitation and phone calls.
It is imperative that Louisville Metro Corrections reopen in-person visitation and in the process establish health standards in order to ensure that incarcerated individuals and their loved ones are able to experience a sense of social connectiveness (Petersen et al., 2019). The physical presence of loved ones is instrumental to people’s sense of connection, identity, and overall emotional wellbeing (King, 1993). Visitation reduces recidivism. In 2011, the Minnesota Department of Corrections conducted a study of 16,420 incarcerated individuals over four years and found that visitation significantly reduced the risk of recidivism. Further, the study suggests visits from siblings, in-laws, fathers and clergy were the most beneficial. Visitation should be in a clean, well-lit space and accommodate the schedules of families. Visitation should be allowed two or more times each week. There should be designated space in the lobby or waiting area to prioritize the physical, emotional and safety of children. Children of incarcerated parents face profound and complex threats to their emotional, physical, educational and financial well-being and visitation with their incarcerated parents provide emotional support as they face these challenges (Fishman, 2008; Turnkey, 2018).
Phone calls should resume with a minimum of one call per day in a private space and should be free. Phone fees disproportionally impact women and children. Women make up almost 90% of family members responsible for call and visitation costs of their incarcerated loved ones and more than a third of the families are in debt because of those costs (Suneta, et al., 2017).
Incarcerated individuals are still members of our society and their presence through visitations and phone calls has a big impact on the emotional well-being of their families and especially themselves. We want to reduce the rate of recidivism. We want families connected as a unit. We hope Louisville Metro Corrections will accept and implement our proposed changes. We care about healthy families in our community and hope you do as well.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Louisville Justice Family Advocates
References
Fishman, S. H., (2008). The impact of incarceration on children of offenders. The Journal ofChildren in Contemporary Society, 50(1), 89-99. doi.org/10.1300/j274v15n01_11
King, A. E. O., (1993). The impact of incarceration on African American families: Implications for practice. Families in Society, 74, 145-153. doi.org/10.1177/104438949307400302
Massoglia, M., Remster, B. (2019). Linkages between incarceration and health. Public HealthReports, 134, 8-14. doi: 10.1177/003335491986563
Minnesota Department of Corrections. (2011). The effects of prison visitation on offenderrecidivism. St. Paul, MN: Author.
Peterson, B., Fontaine, J., Cramer, L., Reisman, A., Cuthrell, H., Goff, M., McCoy, E., & Reginal, T. (2019). Model practices for parents in prisons and jails: Reducingbarriers for families while maximizing safety and security. Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Institute of Corrections.
Saneta, d-V., Schweidler, C., Walters, A., & Zohrabi, A. (2017). Who pays? The true cost ofincarceration on families. Oakland, CA: Ella Baker Center, Forward Together.
Turney, K. (2018). Parental incarceration and children’s well-being. Future of Children,28(1), 147-164.
Western, B., McLanahan, S. (2000). Fathers behind bars: The impact of incarceration on family formation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
Children of incarcerated parents are some of the most resilient children, profoundly impacted by a justice system that hardly acknowledges us.
It is time to share our voices and experiences of the consequences of our unjust system, so that we can lead the way to meaningful reform.
Isabel Coronado, Next100 Policy Leader
Because “children are often thought of as collateral consequences to our parents’ incarceration,” Coronado and her Next100 cohort created this chart with children at the center.
Louisville forensic pediatrician Dr. Melissa Currie points to “substance use, domestic violence and one of the highest parental incarceration rates in the country” as contributing factors. Kentucky is 3rd in the nation with its 12% rate of parental incarceration.
Similar rates in other states have led some national child welfare leaders to question whether neglect is being confused with poverty. These leaders maintain that a strength-based public-health response to poverty is more universal and would offer broad eligibility for health-oriented services.
Removal of children from their families due to neglect is especially concerning in Kentucky because of racial inequities in youth and adult incarceration.
As youth advocate Danielle Hempel points out, where “Black children are much more likely to be removed from their homes than their white peers.
The disproportionate representation of children of color in the foster care system is driven by a number of factors, including socioeconomic status and family structure, as well as bias and structural inequities. Poverty in and of itself does not account for the racial disparities in foster care.
Putting children with incarcerated parents in the center of systemic change to end child abuse in Kentucky calls for racial and economic equity in all policies.
6. “The members of the National Council of Jewish Women-Louisville Section through our Court Watch Program have seen first hand the impact on children when they are separated from a parent.” -From the letter of support from National Council of Jewish Women-Louisville
8. Louisville Metro Department of Corrections should not profiteer from phone calls to families.
The Louisville Metro Budget for 2020-21 approved LMDC to collect $633,600 from “Inmate Telephone Fees.” These fees come from the $9.99 LMDC charges for a 15-minute collect call per person inside the jail.
Demanding action from Louisville Metro Department of Corrections
On October 5th, LFJA Board members, Special Project art activity leaders and community advocates wrote a letter to the Director and Assistant Director of Louisville Metro Department of Corrections (LMDC). With video visiting suspended since March 13th and no consistent public information concerning COVID-19 cases inside the jail, we called on LMDC to take three simple and humane actions for families with incarcerated loved ones in Louisville’s Main Jail Complex:
Provide at least two (2) free phone calls per week to people inside the Jail until visiting is reinstated. The current cost of collect calls to cellular phones from the Jail is an exorbitant amount of $9.99 for a 15-minute call. This fee includes a commission for LMDC.
Post weekly information about the number of cases and health protocols for COVID-19 cases inside the Jail.
Establish public guidelines for timing and conditions to resume video visiting, or create a new alternative.
The letter called for LMDC leaders to respond by October 13th, the date marking seven months with no video contact options for families. The Jail leaders chose not to acknowledge or reply to these common sense calls for action, adding lack of transparency and public accountability to the lack of basic humanity in the face of the pain and suffering especially affecting poor Black and Brown people disproportionately confined in the Jail.
WE NEED YOU TO JOIN OUR CALL TO ACTION!
Here are four ways you can support our work:
Watch our virtual forum on Prison Phone Justice and hear the voices of directly impacted community members, including:
Chef Nikkia Rhodes points out how the high cost of phone calls unfairly punishes children and families who committed no crimes.
LaTonya MacNeal, a recovery worker, says, “a phone call can be a matter of life or death.”
Aaron Bentley, a civil rights attorney, explains how a person being held Pre-Trial and cannot pay cash bail are is less likely to be able to access a free attorney call.
Learnhow Prison Phone calls are part of the global for-profit Prison Industrial Complex now dominated by two international corporations. Research how local jails, including LMDC, get “commissions” on each call.
Sign your name and circulate this petition to engage more people in this important call to action for humanity, transparency, and accountability by Louisville Metro Department of Corrections.
Email LFJA at louisvillefamilyjusticeadvocates@gmail.com if you or a group would like to create an additional separate letter of support like this one that focuses on children’s health.
There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives…Our struggles are particular, but we are not alone.
-Audre Lorde
For more than a decade, advocates for Prison Phone Justice across our country have called for the abolition of for-profit exorbitant rates for phone calls made from prisons and jails.
Now, the intertwined pandemics in public health and racial injustice reveal how Prison Phone Justice is embedded in racial justice and health equity as an important component of public safety and wellness in our community.
Prison Phone Justice sees and affirms the full humanity of incarcerated people. People don’t stop being parents, siblings, grandparents or friends because they are incarcerated. Because of systemic racial disparities in who is incarcerated in Louisville, denying video visiting and charging high costs for phone calls inflicts more harm on Black, Brown and poor people, and their families, friends and advocates.
Prison Phone Justice respects people directly impacted by incarceration and learns from their knowledge and stories. Personal stories, like Chef Nikkia Rhodes’ loving memories of her father, challenge unspoken assumptions that incarcerated people do not have caring connections. Denying access to free visual and spoken contact with families, friends and legal advisors is racially unjust, economically unfair and harmful to the health and wellbeing of our community.
Addressing the immediate needs of currently incarcerated community members connects Prison Phone Justice to the transformative work of challenging injustice and creating safer and healthier systems for our whole community. The presence of COVID-19 inside the jail makes free and accessible communication to friends and loved ones more urgent and necessary now. In this important time of change, every individual and collective action to enact justice makes a difference because, as Audre Lorde points out, we are all connected.
Please join the call and participate in the LFJA Virtual Forum on Wednesday, October 7th from 5:30 – 6:00pm to learn more about Prison Phone Justice, hear from folks directly impacted, and what you can do about it!
LFJA always welcomes and depends on your suggestions, ideas, concerns, questions, and needs.
In mid-March, the video visiting lobby at the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections closed, understandably, because of COVID-19. Yet, now five months later, there is still no alternative for families to visually see their incarcerated loved ones and no information about when video visiting can resume.
On August 6th the Courier-Journal reported 124 incarcerated persons tested positive for COVID-19. If you have not had an incarcerated loved one, imagine how families would feel hearing this news and knowing that social distancing is impossible in the jail. All families in Louisville should have access to vital health information concerning their loved ones, especially now and especially for those being detained by Louisville Metro Government.
And it is more important now than ever to recognize that racial disparities in policing and judging mean significant and now life-threatening health disparities in those who are in danger in jail.
Kentucky now has the 3rd highest rate in the nation (12%) of children experiencing incarceration. LFJA recently joined with Partners for Education, at Berea College, and Hasan Davis, performance artist and former KY Commissioner of Juvenile Justice, in an Urban and Rural Learning Exchange about the impact of parental incarceration on children and families in our communities. One thing we learned is Family justice, including visiting and phone calls, is more important now than ever!
On May 29th, when people in Louisville and across the nation marched in protest of the most recent police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, LFJA community photographer Layfierre Mitchell knew it was a historic moment. He “stands behind the movement,” he says, because “he is living the movement” and “some people have to be involved.” On June 23rd, he returned to downtown Louisville to photograph “Injustice Square,” at 6th and Jefferson Street, still being occupied by people demanding justice for Breonna Taylor.
“My pictures are a platform for me to influence how people feel. Pictures are a visual representation of the world.”
May 29th: Downtown Louisville, KY
May 29th: Downtown Louisville, KY
“Having a camera is sharing your experience. When I take pictures I want the camera to show what I saw.”
“When I do photography, I have to think about how my pictures are going to look after I take them. I think that taking my pictures is like giving a gift.”
June 23rd: Injustice Square, Louisville, KY In commemoration of Breonna Taylor
June 23rd: Injustice Square, Louisville, KY
“When I take pictures of people, I am always thinking about the people seeing the pictures and what they will think of them. That means you have to empathize and put yourself in the place of the viewer.”
Louisville Family Justice Advocates 