News broke this week that Michigan’s only women’s prison, Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, is under investigation from the ACLU, Michigan Department of Corrections, and US Department of Justice for alleged human rights abuses against mentally ill female inmates.
Inmates are being hog tied naked, with their feet and hands cuffed together behind their backs, for two hours or more as a form of punishment if they do not “learn to behave,” witnesses claim. Prisoners have also been denied food and water. According to Kary Moss, executive director of ACLU of Michigan, the water was shut off in solitary confinement and guards failed to provide any to inmates for hours or even days. Some women are left standing, sitting, or lying in their own feces or urine for days on end, denied showers, and often controlled by the use of tasers.
For one mentally ill inmate at the Valley, poor sanitation, lack of food and water, and other forms of continuous abuse ended her life as she knew it. Last month she was found non-responsive in her cell. She was transferred to an outside hospital where she was pronounced brain dead. She is not the only the only casualty to come out of WHVC. There have been several prisoners who have died from both suicide and medical neglect in the past few years alone. Is this the intended function of our criminal justice system? What is the role of corrections in America today? Is it to punish mentally ill women until they are pronounced brain dead?
Luckily, women prisoners in Michigan have some advocates on the outside. Carol Jacobsen has been working for years to expose the conditions inside the prison. Jacobsen is a professor at University of Michigan and director of the Michigan Women’s Justice & Clemency Project. While she has done many interviews with inmates throughout the years, she has found that civilian access to living quarters inside the prison is nearly impossible. Jacobson stated, “As long as it’s such a closed system, it’s ripe for abuse.” Why the secrecy? According to Jacobson, “Abu Ghraib has nothing on Huron Valley or Michigan prisons. Our prisons in Michigan have torture going on every day.”
Prisoners themselves are speaking out against what they see as intolerable conditions. In February, three inmates wrote formal grievances to the MDOC describing how four women were housed together in a 96-square foot chemical caustic closet repurposed into a cell. Inmate Karen Felton wrote, “The cell I’m in is inadequately small for myself and three others, and there are not enough lockers, no privacy, inadequate desks and chairs, and there is no ventilation.”
The three women’s grievances, however, did not change their living conditions. As a matter of procedure, when more than one complaint is submitted regarding a given issue, all duplicates are rejected by the grievance coordinator. Therefore, only one of the three grievances, submitted by a prisoner named Robin Sutton, was investigated. The MDOC responded: “All prisoners housed in Dickinson unit have been treated humanely and with dignity in matters of health care, personal safety and general living conditions.”
The use of hog-ties, denial of food and water, unsanitary conditions, excessive use of tasers, and forcing four women to live in a chemical closet is considered humane? All inmates, including the mentally ill, deserve more dignity than this.
(Photo Credit: Michigan Deparment of Corrections)
#Michigan #Women’s #Prison: “Ripe for Abuse” http://t.co/VWOSsoJ1fI
This is so true.. I locked in a chemical caustic closet with 3 other women until 2 weeks before I left.. Crazy stuff!!
My best friend sister just got out of Huron valley they released her with a broken ankle you should talk to her her name is Jamie McCormick
I know a Prisoner there who has stated that there is mold growing inside the walls of the showers, I thought then, that they didn’t deserve that, this is America
I was in the same situation with these same women. In three months time we were locked down for emergency demobilization due to deaths and suicides as result of treatment, or lack of, by CO’s. Also I was housed in these so call cells that Sutton grived upon. As result nothing was ever done about any grievance submitted. Many women grieved on similar situation and lack if medical treatment. Some CO’s actually laughed and jokes about the way seg inmates were being treated. Something needs to be done here. Yes, we all committed crimes but no judge felt any of us deserve to be sentenced to death or torture! And that’s what some are getting at WHV.
My daughter served 8 years at Huron Valley she is on numerous psych meds because of that shit hole, she is has various mental problems and I tell you what everything being said about the abuse, rapes, standing naked ect is 100% true. I suggest each and every family member look up every single law, constitution laws like I did . The more people that sue this hell hole, the more the public and civil rights advocates know and Governor is aware of the better. And anyone with mental health ( family members) in this place please spread the word that putting a mental health prisoner in segregation for more then 3-4 days is against the law . This place needs every charge and lawsuit brought against them and they need to be held accountable for their actions also. Which I am in the process of doing.
Knowing an immate at WHVCF MDOC and now having done weekly visits since Sept ’14 the comments here are fully true. I can not believe the State of Mi is so corrupt in it’s correctional facilities. Drugs are rampant as well as prisoner abuse. The news media is oblivious to this matter and the prison officials turn a deaf ear to reality.
I was an inmate at WHVCF from 2010 to 2014. I have seen the abuse and lived in the conditions of this place for 4 yrs. People are being housed in closets and other rooms to small for the amount of people they put in them. Not having lockers to store their belongings and then being punished for not having their belongings stored properly. They are taking day rooms and housing inmates in them thus leaving inmates without anywhere to go when they have their “free time.” There is black mold in the showers and disgusting conditions in the kitchen where i worked. Inmates are being forced to serve food with mold and bugs found in it to other inmates. We were told to remove these things and serve the rest or lose our jobs, which for some was the only means of money they had. The place is horrible and everything the inmates are saying is the truth. I pray every day for the women still in that place and hope one day someone will close it down
This is so wrong
I, as well, was an inmate @ Huron valley. One week before I left I witnessed a woman have a mental breakdown in a unit with no walls or doors and 88 inmates, therefore putting us all in danger. I alerted unit officers as the situation began to escalate however I wasn’t taken seriously and was ignored. I pleaded with a unit officer to call a therapist or even make ” a round” the evaluate the situation herself but to no avail. The woman having the breakdown was one of my bunkies and everyone in the room knew her behavior was extremely alarming. I did my best to keep this poor woman in need of help calm as she began to ask me if “I was put through this same experiment” and if “sound was real”. Because there were no walls or doors in tho unit, it was obvious to me that this situation would not be contained. People kept walking by, attempting to speak to this quickly deteriorating woman, not realizing how severe this situation was. Finally, an officer making a round came by and noticed some things were “off”. It had been nearly an hour since I’d attempted to report it. The officer came to the same conclusion as myself after maybe 45 seconds of speaking to this woman. At that time, the officers began to contact therapists and higher ups but the situation was in full swing. It ended with the woman becoming aggressive with officer in a open cell of 88 women. Eventually responding officers gained control of the situation and the inmate was handcuffed and strapped into a wheelchair… But instead of therapy she went to a segregation cell and was charged with assault on an officer. She was only 7 months away from going home.
If that story left a bad taste in your mouth, then hearing how a middle aged women was left in segregation for ayear and was fed through a slot on her floor and not given a shower in over 3 months while she lived in her own defecation and was denied her medication, will certainly sour your stomach. Her name is Morgan. I was in segregation next to her and the hall smelled of death. Everyday her screams and pleas for help would nearly bring me tears. It was heart wrenching. It made the fact that I was being housed in an observation cell and being watched on a camera by a male sgt. seem not so bad in comparison. Astonishingly, one year later after Morgan was released from segregation, I ended up in seg in my previous cell. She came back 3 days later. To everyone’s shock and horror, they put her back in that same room that must have been so traumatic to even be near…..
The list of stories go on and on.
The living situation and the treatment of inmates is inhuman. We were forced to only use restrooms at approx times, causing bladder issues. I’ve personally witness verbal and physical abuse from the officers on inmates. The prison justifies this treatment as either policy or because they are under construction. Unfortunately because we are criminals and inmates, MDOC property, or voices aren’t heard unless we stick together. #whvwomenunite
The way women are treated in this facility should be illegal I’ve seen women strapped to a chair while bleeding and walked through the campus. They turned caustic closets into rooms they work the guards crazy hours which results in overdoses and verbal abuse I watched a girl pass away and be covered in a bag. No raid was done no dignity was given . Help those still there its inhumane
I witnessed this first hand. I worked in the segregation and mentally ill units at Huron Valley and saw what women went through. I remember One incident specially where an 18 year old girl was on suicide watch hog tide naked to the bed in front of me. She hadn’t had a shower in 8+ days, so she started banging her head on the wall next to her bed in order to get the attention of the CO, because she was sick of smelling herself and wanted a shower. They finally gave it to her. This was my normal daily job. As I sat at the door watching through the food slot, I could only offer words of encouragement and prayer. These women need our attention, our help and our prayers… What will u do to help?
I am a mother of an imate who died at Huron valley I would like to talk to previous inmates or anyone who may have known my daughter.
It sounds just like the Natasha McKenna case. And we know that to be true. She was stripped naked during booking at the Fairfax, VA jail. She was made to remain naked for her eight days there. She was kept in Solitary Confinement. She was beaten repeatedly during her stay. During the so called transport, she was handcuffed, shackled, hogtied and blindfolded. And then she was tasered. The record shows she was also beaten while in these restraints. Very, very interesting.
[…] [26] Caroline McFadden, “Michigan Women’s Prison: “Ripe for Abuse””: http://www.womeninandbeyond.org/?p=15892 […]
[…] [26] Caroline McFadden, “Michigan Women’s Prison: “Ripe for Abuse””: http://www.womeninandbeyond.org/?p=15892 […]
Why is this even tolerated in our prisons? There has to be something changed here. I would like to know why nothing is being done to correct this situation.
[…] Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, Michigan’s only women’s prison. Two years ago, Huron Valley was investigated for alleged human rights abuses against mentally ill female inmates, and today Janika Nichole Edmonds is […]
Please, if you commented below and have direct knowledge/information of the dangerous living conditions….CALL ME! I’m trying to help.
313-961-4400
Women Behind Bars http://lansingcitypulse.com/article-14592-Women-behind-bars.html
Women’s prison would be hardest hit by Senate budget cuts http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2017/05/womens_prison_would_be_hardest.html
Budget cuts would hit Michigan’s prison for women the hardest http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/05/04/michigan-budget-women-prison/101283020/
My dtr will be going here soon (drugs) & I am terrified for her. She’s an addict. She’s never been in prison and after reading this I’m even more afraid fo her. Her behaviours escalated at 15 when her father molested her. He got one week Huber!! How is this rehabilitation? How are these kinds of treatment justice?? Now my every thought will be worrying for her safety in an environment of atrocities commited by prison staff. This is insanity!!
This Prison needs to be closed down or investigated to the fullest, and these guards need to be held accountable for their actions, I just can’t believe that these women are treated like animals, come on lawyers get off your ass and investigate and stop this abuse of women.