“Unnecessary Rigor” in our Jail

(Speech to the Josephine County Commissioners, July 18, 2007)

I spoke to Sheriff Gilbertson this morning on KAJO’s morning talk show.  His only response to my demand that he properly clothe his inmates for the chill he maintains is, “Don’t go to jail.”  Since the jail will not be empty any time soon, if ever, the issue remains.  I have been there; I have felt my big toe go numb from the cold while living indoors; I had to keep myself wrapped in blankets to keep from freezing for the entire week I was there, except when we were allowed outside in the exercise yard, where the temperatures were in the 90’s.  Our sheriff spends good money refrigerating the people in his charge.

I have been there and I cannot forget it and will not let it go.  The fact that most of the women were wrapped in blankets, and that the guards allowed it despite the jail rule that bedding must stay on bunks, shows that the clothing provided is insufficient for the temperatures and that the guards know it.  They allow it despite the risk to themselves from blanket-wrapped inmates!   So insufficient clothing on inmates is a double lawsuit risk to the county, both from the risk to officers and by mistreating inmates.

          

Sheriff Gilbertson is playing to the “punish them enough that they won’t come back” crowd of Arpaio* lovers, at the expense of the safety of his officers and his charges, and of the finances of the county.  But jail isn’t for punishment; it’s for holding people until trial, some of whom are innocent.  To the extent the jail holds convicts, holding people in a concrete box is punishment enough, so the Oregon Constitution says that people held in jail “shall not be treated with unnecessary rigor.”  It doesn’t say the same about prisons, because prisons are for punishment; it just can’t be cruel or unusual.   Yet state prisoners are given more clothing and are held at far more comfortable temperatures than jail inmates.

          

County Commissioners are responsible for the treatment of jail inmates.  Commissioners are individually required to periodically inspect the jail.  Each of you Commissioner should individually ask the inmates about the temperatures, and sit in a holding cell for even a half-hour in only a cotton, short-sleeved jumpsuit, underwear, socks, and sandals, and see how rigorous the conditions are.  Even though he is an elected official, the Commissioners can take the operation of the jail away from the Sheriff, if need be.   The Sheriff is playing politics with people’s lives and the finances of the county, by making it impossible to enforce his own jail’s safety rules.  The County Commissioners should at least officially tell him to stop doing so, and to properly clothe his charges.

*Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, famous for tent jail, pink underwear, and persecution of Hispanics.