Sheriff flouts jail rules

Speech to the Josephine County Commissioners, 1-1-2007

We have a serious problem in our jail.  Our Sheriff won’t allow the inmates and staff to follow a rule clearly printed in the inmate manual, which says that inmates will not remove bedding from their bunks.

          
This rule has a good reason behind it.  A blanket can be used to hide weapons or contraband, or be used as a weapon, to take down and disable an officer.  This is especially true when the rule is routinely broken, as it is now, and officers are used to seeing inmates wrapped in blankets within their pods.

          
The rule has to be ignored within the pods by staff and inmates alike because the clothing the inmates are provided is no match for the temperature the jail maintains.  It is simply too cold for loose, short-sleeved cotton jumpsuits. 

          
When I apprised Gil Gilbertson of this situation while he was running for office, he was all sympathy about denial of constitutional rights.  Once he was in office, I asked him if he would raise the temperature or provide long underwear, which would make it bearable without blankets. His concern for constitutional rights had vanished.

          
I have asked Sheriff Gilbertson repeatedly on KAJO’s talk show what the actual jail temperature is.  He never admits to knowing it, but says he will get the information to me.  I follow up with an e-mail inquiry, to which he does not reply.  Last show, he said he already had told me, and I said he had not.  He flat-out lied to the public, on the air.  And again, he did not reply to my e-mail. 

You would think that, by now, the number would be engraved on his brain—if he has ever thought to inquire.  Yet he tells you that the temperature is in line with national standards, whatever they are.  And he says that there is good reason for the chill, but he doesn’t tell us what that reason is.

As for reasons for not providing more clothing, he started with, “I can’t afford it.”  When I pointed out that there are unspent personnel funds, he came up with, “They might hang themselves.”  When I pointed out that such people are given paper gowns in a warm cell, he gave up on excuses.  Now he gives no reason. 

All one can conclude is that the Sheriff is playing to the “punish ‘em before conviction” crowd.  But jails hold the innocent as well as the guilty, which is why the Oregon Constitution says that prisoners in jail shall not be held with “unnecessary rigor.”  Even prisons that I have been in don’t provide this degree of rigor.  There, we had warmer indoor temperatures and clothing for all seasons.

This rigor is not necessary.  The bedding-on-bunks rule could be followed if the Sheriff would either raise the temperature or provide his captives with long underwear.  Instead, he says he has instructed staff to allow inmates to wear blankets.  He teaches disrespect for the rules to people who hardly need the lesson.