Bad things happening in lockups

I can already anticipate the hostile reactions I’m going to get for this commentary – particularly from people who are going to argue that “jail” isn’t supposed to be a nice place to spend time.

But no matter how hard-headed one might be, I think we all ought to be able to agree that a pair of incidents involving people being detained by police are shameful enough that we ought to be trying to figure out ways to avoid a repeat – rather than trying to figure out ways to let law enforcement off the hook for what went wrong on their watch.

NEITHER OF THESE incidents involved a prison (either state or federal), and that is important to note. We’re talking about people who still had that presumption of innocence, who wound up being harmed during their time of incarceration.

In one case involving the Lake County Jail in suburban Waukegan, we’re talking about someone who wound up dead.

For as the Chicago Tribune reported, Lyvita Gomes died back in January at a hospital in Waukegan from the injuries she sustained while being held at the county jail for missing a scheduled court appearance on charges that she did not show up for jury duty.

Some might argue that for her to be facing prosecution for a jury duty incident, she must have done something severe. Then again, she was an Indian citizen whose visa status was expired. It was unlikely she could have served on a jury in any case.

THIS IS A bureaucratic nightmare that wound up with Gomes in the jail, where she started up the hunger strike that resulted in her hospitalization and ultimate death.

Her family is filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, claiming the county sheriff who runs the jail should have realized she was not completely mentally stable and should have taken extra precautions to deal with her.

Then again, there probably are people who want to view all types of people sitting in a cell somewhere as flawed or tainted, and not worth any extra attention. Which is a very cold attitude to have – particularly for those who haven’t been found guilty of any offense!

Anybody who thinks that having an inmate die during incarceration is somehow acceptable truly IS the problem in our society.

LAKE COUNTY OFFICIALS claim they’re going to be “vindicated” when the details of this case come out. Which means their offense is something along the lines of “bad things happen.”

Yet as much as the idea of someone who probably needed help winding up dead makes me squirm, I have to admit that another incident occurring in Chicago bothers me even more.

In that incident that WLS-TV reported occurred at the Harrison District police station, at Harrison Street and Kedzie Avenue just off the Eisenhower Expressway, a woman being held in the lockup says that a police officer offered to help her in exchange for sex.

The incident is under investigation by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the police Bureau of Internal Affairs. Chicago Police officials said in a statement that the officer in question, “has been relieved of police powers.”

WHICH COULD MEAN he might face criminal charges some day, or might merely face the prospect of losing his job. Or maybe it means it will be a drawn-out process that will result in some technical maneuver that many will view as no punishment at all.

Although I find it interesting that the Fraternal Order of Police is placing its distance between this officer and themselves (usually, they’d be offering to defend him; this cop has to pay for his own attorney). So maybe something will happen.

I can only hope so. It’s just that when it comes to matters involving law enforcement and criminal justice, incidents involving male police officers or corrections officers and female inmates always strike me as the most peculiar.

It is an incident where these men see a pool of women in a completely submissive position, and they try to take advantage of it for their own personal gratification.

WHICH IS SOMETHING that bothers me even more than the woman in Lake County who likely died because no one wanted to take her condition seriously.

Somehow, the concept of “they’re in jail” doesn’t seem like a high-minded defense.

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Creating a new transgender policy for county jail proof we’re looking forward

The Cook County Jail now has a specific policy for dealing with transgender inmates, which is much more than most law enforcement agencies have. Photograph provided by Cook County Department of Corrections.

I’m sure some people are going to view the Cook County Jail’s new policy concerning transgender inmates as a sign of our society in decline. As though having a policy that respects people and the way they perceive themselves is somehow bad.

If it reads like I believe Sheriff Tom Dart had his staff do the right thing when it comes to the policy implemented last month (and which the Associated Press reports has already affected the treatment of seven county jail inmates), that would be true.

BECAUSE IN MOST cases, this is an issue that most law enforcement officials somehow manage to ignore – as though it will just go away if we don’t think about it.

In fact, that was the case for Cook County up until a few weeks ago. Reports that started with the Windy City Times newspaper and escalated last week into national news coverage indicate that Dart himself was shocked to learn there was no specific policy for what to do with inmates whose sense of their own gender doesn’t match up with their birth.

In most cases, police departments that have to deal with such individuals in their holding cells try to get away with merely lumping individuals according to their birth – even in cases where they have gone several steps toward becoming someone of the opposite sex.

The few law enforcement agencies I have heard of that have tried to address this issue go in terms of having policies that take into account how far along a person is in their transition – almost as though they’re looking for any excuse to keep someone in their original gender rather than respect any change they may be making in their lives.

CONSIDERING THAT IS the status quo for much of the country, it is what makes the new Cook County Jail policy so unique. We’re the first in Illinois, although jails in the District of Columbia, San Francisco and in Maine have created their own rules for addressing the issue.

Inmates who are transgender actually come before a committee that assesses them as individuals. There is now even specific policy concerning what types of clothes and toiletries an inmate in the process of changing gender ought to receive, and which gender of corrections officers are allowed to search which inmates.

I’m sure there are law enforcement types around the country who are chortling at the thought of a “Gender Identity Committee.” If anything, those officers are most in need of the sensitivity training that the new Cook County policy also requires for jail employees.

It ought to be pure common sense that inmates are assessed as individuals, and their unique characteristics be taken into account when trying to incarcerate them.

THAT IS PARTICULARLY true in the case of the county jail, where the bulk of the inmates are those individuals still awaiting trial. Which means they fall into that category of “presumed innocent” until otherwise found guilty of their criminal charges.

That is why the people who are going to view this issue as one of “coddling criminals” misses the point. Although I still remember once visiting the Stateville Correctional Center and seeing some of the extra-curricular activities that inmates can participate in, with some of the most hardened prison officials telling me words I can’t forget.

“They’re still human beings,” I was told. “They’ll behave just like they’re treated.”

So perhaps a little respect for these particular county jail inmates is a step in the right direction, particularly if it helps reduce the climate of violence that exists within the penal systems of this country. And if that means somebody’s homophobia has to be challenged, then so be it.

NOW I REALIZE that a segment of our society is always going to have its hang-ups about anything that is in any way related to non-heterosexual conduct (and I write that sentence knowing full well that sex-change is more about oneself than acting with others).

But I also realize that this is an issue where it is the older generations that are keeping hostility alive, and a younger generation doesn’t seem to care as much. In fact, some younger people think the only thing absurd about such issues is that anyone cares at all.

Because at a time when some of our political people are determined to pass policies meant to reinforce the idea of gay people as deserving to be excluded from society as a whole, it is nice to see that some of our government officials are willing to implement policies that show some simple respect.

Which means it is likely that the day will come a few decades from now when people look back at us and the fact that it was an issue at all to create a transgender policy and scratch their heads in bewilderment at how our society ever thought it could get by without one.

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