Older Prisoners
By: George Feigley
Cofounder
One of the manias of Pennsylvania's culture of hatred is to keep
people in prison until they're old and invalid, sickly and
dependent.
I call it the "O'Reilly Syndrome."
It's a Nazi-like
culture of hatred, extremism and psychoses.
It's a kind of social
neuroses.
For us older prisoners, surviving in a Pennsylvania prison becomes more difficult every day. Conditions are bad, unsanitary and stressful. The medical staff is often unresponsive if not downright abusive. The guards are typically abusive. The administration is unprofessional if not downright criminal. The grievance system is a farce used to cover-up an endless array of official misdeeds. The Older Adults Protective Services Act is a Pennsylvania state law, 35 PS 10225.101 et seq. It provides a course of action for relief from various abuses of persons sixty years-old and older. The Federal component of the act (42 USC 3027) and the enforcement provisions at 23 PaCS 6110(d) add force to the act. This law offers an avenue for prisoners to obtain relief from abuses including verbal abuses and intimidation by the prison staff. It also offers relief from medical neglect and adverse environmental conditions such as cold, noise, danger from staff or other prisoners and so forth. Under the law, there are two modes of action. A prisoner or his/her loved one may file an action in the local county court against the persons (not the prison itself) who are causing the abuses. There is no filing fee and no fee for service. The court has authority to enjoin persons from abusing an older person in any way including verbally as with threats, intimidation or degrading remarks. For example, a guard named Conti threatened to help me "get dead" and subjected me to a litany of verbal abuses such as "shit-balls." Had I chosen, I could have brought criminal charges, or filed an action under the Older Adults Protective Services Act ("OAPSA"). I assumed he had psychological abnormalities so I ignored it. Where the abuses are caused by the prison itself or by systemic conditions such as cold or danger from staff of prisoners, the action must be filed in the original jurisdiction of the Commonwealth Court, 624 Irvis Office Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120. A prisoner who's been aggrieved or his/her loved one, may also
file a formal complaint with the local office of the Pennsylvania Department
of Aging, 555 Walnut Street, 5th Floor, Harrisburg, PA
17101-1550, 717-783-1550.
There are 52 local area agencies.
The "ombudsman" to help the older person and the addresses of
local offices are available from the Department of Aging.
For
Cumberland County, for example, where the Camp Hill prison is located, the office is Cumberland
County Office of Aging, Human Services Building, 16 West High Street, Carlisle, PA 17013,
717-240-2922.
The law also created a toll free hotline, 1-800-490-8505,
for ANYONE to report suspected abuses of an older person.
Under the laws, the prison itself must report, act upon and
correct abuses of older prisoners.
Don't hold your breath.
The
Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment holds the law in contempt.
It routinely violates the law.
It will offer no protection.
It will not help anyone except itself.
Having said that, the prisoner or his loved one should still
report abuses to the prison.
The court will want to know if the
prison had an opportunity to correct the problem.
It's a legal
game where the court pretends to think that the Department of
Imprisonment is a good bunch of fellows trying to do the right
thing.
We all know they are snakes.
Age is a sort of disability.
Different older persons have
different needs and problems.
No person, old or young should
have to endure abuses.
Where a person is old, sick, disabled
or suffering from physical or emotional problems, the
Americans With Disabilities Act offers another avenue
to seek relief.
It's a federal law, 42 USC 12102 et seq., which
is supposed to be enforced through prison regulation DC-ADM
006.
Don't expect the prison to provide any help or relief.
An action may be brought in either state or federal court to obtain
relief from conditions which impact older prisoners.
The stress
caused on an older person's heart, body, or mind by harassment,
abuse or intimidation by a prison staff is actionable under the
law.
The disability is the person's age and fragile physical
condition.
The reasonable accommodation that is being sought
is freedom from the stress cause by the staff's conduct.
A prison medical department or its staff, or the prison
administration may also be sued to force them to provide proper
care and/or a proper environment.
If the Pennsylvania prison system is going to do something
right, it must be compelled to do it.
The Department of
Imprisonment will not behave properly on its own.
These are bad
people.
Their business is to do bad things.
Don't expect help
within the prison system.
Prisoners or their loved ones must
hope the courts or outside agencies will help.
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