Another wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against troubled LaSalle Corrections of Ruston after an inmate at Catahoula Correctional Center in Harrisonburg after an inmate on suicide watch managed to obtain and smoke poisonous insecticide and died eight days later.
Also named as defendants in the wrongful death of Javan Kennerson were Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Catahoula Parish Sheriff Toney Edwards, Catahoula Correctional Center, and a host of employees of the facility.
Kennerson was in the ninth year of a 20-year sentence for an unspecified offense.
The lawsuit, filed in the Western District of U.S. Federal Court, claims that “Since 2015, dozens of incarcerated people have died in LaSalle facilities due to lack of treatment or delay of treatment of their medical conditions.” At least nine of those deaths were attributed to suicide, the petition filed by Jennifer Barthe, Kennerson’s mother, says.
Of the nine suicides cited by the lawsuit, seven were in Texas facilities and the other two in Louisiana (Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield and Richwood Correctional Center in Richwood in Ouachita Parish).
The lawsuit says that auditors observed “numerous instances” in which LaSalle was not in compliance with timely cell checks or observations of mentally ill and suicidal incarcerated people.” These included:
- The Department of Homeland Security Office of Detention and Oversight found that LaSalle’s River Correctional Center failed to conduct observations of an individual who was on suicide watch in May 2021;
- In October 2020, LaSalle’s Winn Correctional Center was found to have inadequate camera monitoring of the facility;
- The Department of Homeland Security Office of Detention and Oversight found that LaSalle’s Irwin County Detention Center failed to personally observe people on suicide watch in 2020;
- The Texas Commission of Jail Standards found that LaSalle’s Fannin County Jail was not meeting state standards on face-to-face observations of suicidal and mentally ill incarcerated people in 2018 and 2019;
- The Texas Commission of Jail Standards found that LaSalle’s Jack Harwell Detention Center was not meeting state minimum standards on face-to-face observations of suicidal and mentally ill incarcerated people in 2018 and 2019;
- The Department of Homeland Security Office of Detention and Oversight found that LaSalle’s Richwood Correctional Center did not conduct timely cell checks of people housed in the special management unit on one (1) occasion in December 2019; six (6) separate occasions in December 2020; and once again in October 2021;
- The Texas Commission of Jail Standards found that LaSalle’s Johnson County Jail was not meeting state standards on face-to-face observations of suicidal and mentally ill incarcerated people in 2018;
- The Texas Commission of Jail Standards found that LaSalle’s Limestone County Jail was not meeting state standards on face-to-face observations of suicidal and mentally ill incarcerated people in 2018; and
- The Texas Commission of Jail Standards found that LaSalle’s Willacy County Jail was not meeting state standards on face-to-face observations of suicidal and mentally ill incarcerated people in 2020.
Auditors also found on several occasions that LaSalle had inadequate training and policies on suicide prevention.
Catahoula Corrections Center is a private prison run by LaSalle Corrections via contract with the Department of Corrections, the latest of which is a renewal dated 2019. “While LaSalle operates this facility, both it and D.O.C. are fully and individually responsible for the health, including mental health, of the people in custody at CCC,” the petition says.
[…] Source link […]
Ditto my many previous posts on accountability.
I can’t use the word d….o, but I agree with Mr. Winham, and add that this has been an ongoing tragedy of privatizaton and a good example of producing our own oligarchs via corporate American. thanks ron thompson