IN OUR OPINION | NEGLECT IN CUSTODY: Give prisoners a health advocate

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IN OUR OPINION | NEGLECT IN CUSTODY: Give prisoners a health advocate

December 9, 2006

U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen practically was forced on Thursday to order the Michigan Department of Corrections to create an independent prison health monitor. State leaders need an attitude adjustment or they could ultimately lose control of Michigan prisons, as California lost control of its system.

Despite the egregious cases cited by a Free Press editorial page series on prison health care, and found in hundreds of pages of court documents, Gov. Jennifer Granholm's administration and state legislators have mostly denied the problem.

An independent medical ombudsman would help ensure that prison health care meets constitutional standards and that public money is spent efficiently. It would work to correct harmful practices and policies that contributed to the recent death of Timothy Joe Souders, a 21-year-old mentally ill inmate, and others. Such oversight is just, wise and in the best interests of taxpayers, who foot the bill for costly lawsuits and more serious inmate medical problems when the prison health care system fails.

In fact, Michigan's independent Corrections Ombudsman's Office worked well for more than 25 years, before the Legislature closed it three years ago in a shortsighted move to save $500,000 a year. Recently, both Granholm and prominent Republican leaders have expressed support for bringing it back, but have so far failed to act. Although Enslen's order applies only to three prisons in Jackson, the state should extend the ombudsman's authority to the entire system. If health care problems are bad at prisons under federal oversight for more than 20 years, they are probably even worse elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the response by state officials to this glaring problem has been to appeal and deny. The state is appealing Enslen's order last month that would, among other things, ban the use of punitive, nonmedical restraints.

Enslen is, with reason, losing his patience with the Department of Corrections. Thursday's order holds the state in contempt for allowing inadequate medical treatment and calls for fines of $2 million and up to $20,000 a day for continued failure to comply.

Michigan's politicians must stop wasting their time, and the state's resources, ducking critically necessary fixes to the state's dysfunctional, and sometimes deadly, health care system.