A Western Australia prisoner transport van forced Anna to endure hours in urine-soaked clothes. Why? Because she’s Aboriginal.

April 6, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: first as tragedy, then as farce.

                                                            Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

According to a report, “The transport of regional and remote prisoners”, released Monday, April 3, by the Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services of Western Australia, history repeated itself recently. The report describes “Anna’s journey”, a “transport welfare fail”. It then notes that the exact same failure happened to another incarcerated woman … two weeks earlier. The report opens, “This review was prompted by a few recent incidents that raised questions for us about the conditions under which prisoners were being transported across regional Western Australia. It was also undertaken against a historical backdrop of the tragic case of Mr Ward who died during a prisoner transport in 2008. We set out to seek assurance that the gains made since 2008 have been sustained.” The report ends, “There is a clear gap in the monitoring of … movement services at regional locations, which should be addressed by the Department. This aligns with the findings of the Coroner following the death of Mr Ward, and a recommendation for the Department to conduct regular reviews of transport contractor services in regional locations (Hope, 2009).” What does it mean that a failure in 2022, reported in 2023, “aligns” with findings and recommendations, issued in 2009, concerning an incident in 2008?

In 2022, Anna entered Greenough Regional Prison, for the third time. The staff at Greenough knew Anna. Flagged as living with schizophrenia, Anna was known to have an extensive psychiatric history, including frequent episodes of self-harm and suicidal behavior. This time, in her first week or so, Anna was reported twice for uncooperative and erratic behavior. She stopped taking her medications. Despite her non-compliant and erratic behavior, it was decided to move Anna to Bandyup Women’s Prison. The pre-transfer report described Anna as “satisfactory – no major concerns”. When staff tried to place Anna on a plane headed for Bandyup, Anna urinated on herself in the transport vehicle and refused to wear a mask. The trip was cancelled. As Anna was being returned to Greenough, staff issued a new plan, with no mention of schizophrenia or any other issues. The new plan was to transport Anna by van the 400 some kilometers to Bandyup.

A week later, Anna was bundled, shackled and handcuffed, into the security pod of an escort van, and off they went. The journey was 4 hours and 35 minutes. During that trip, early on, Anna, still handcuffed and shackled, urinated. There was no CCTV footage or cell phone call recordings. There was no documentation of anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps that’s because there was nothing out of the ordinary. Two hours in wet clothes, shackled and handcuffed in a so-called security pod. All in a day’s work … if the person is an Aboriginal woman.

Anna’s story ends in redundancy: “Prior to Anna’s transfer, another female prisoner departed Greenough in early April 2022 and urinated in the vehicle. Upon arrival to Bandyup, staff were made aware that this prisoner had urinated in the pod during the journey. Many of the issues we identified with Anna’s experience were also present in this earlier case …. It is concerning, and disappointing, that staff failed to learn from this earlier incident and implement measures, such as bringing a change of clothes or a towel, that would have helped protect the dignity and welfare of Anna during her journey a few weeks later.”

It is concerning and disappointing, and altogether predictable. Staff did not fail to learn, they did not even have to refuse to learn, because there has been no reason to. Throughout the report, the Inspector invokes the tragic case of Mr. Ward, who died in a prisoner transport in Western Australia. In January 2008, Mr. Ward, 46 years old, a respected elder, was taken on a 220 mile ride across the blistering Central Desert to face a drunk driving charge. Mr. Ward had represented the Ngaanyatjarra lands across Australia and at international fora. The people who drove Mr. Ward threw him into the back of a Mazda van, into the security “pod” with metal seating and no air conditioning. All male remand prisoners are considered dangerous, or “high risk”. That Mr. Ward was known to be cooperative and congenial was irrelevant. For his own safety and welfare, he had to go in the back. The trip took almost four hours. The temperatures that day were 40 degrees Celsius, 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Mr. Ward died of heatstroke. He died with third degree burns. Mr. Ward cooked to death, slowly and in excruciating pain.

In a 2001 government study, identical Mazda `pods’ were described as “not fit for humans to be transported in.” They were seen as “a death waiting to happen.”  In the intervening decade, there were other major reports, two in 2005, in 2006. In 2008, Mr. Ward was dumped into the oven of the back of that Mazda. When asked about the implications of Mr. Ward’s story, Keith Hamburger, the principal author of the 2005 report, responded, “That’s a matter of great concern because this is not rocket science, we’re dealing here with duty of care.”

A duty of care. In 2022, that duty of care meant two Aboriginal women, separately, abused. The list of Aboriginal women who died in custody, in Western Australia alone, is long: Maureen Mandijarra, 2012; Ms. Dhu, 2014; Cherdeena Wynne, 2019; JC, 2019. Many die in police custody, others in prisoner transport vans, others in their cells. Year after year, the Inspector of Custodial Services for Western Australia has described Anna’s ultimate destination, Bandyup Women’s Prison, the only women’s prison in Western Australia, as a hellhole. Speaking of Bandyup, the Inspector said, “I wanted to know how such an event could occur in a 21st Century Australian prison and to prevent it happening again.” First as tragedy, then as farce does not mean the second time is funny. For those forced to suffer, the pain is new, and yet not new, each time. The farce is in the expressions of surprise, discovery, concern of the perpetrators. It is concerning and disappointing … and happening somewhere right now.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Ngayarta Kujarra by Jakayu Biljabu, Yikartu Bumba, May Chapman, Nyanjilpayi Nancy Chapman, Doreen Chapman, Linda James, Donna Loxton, Mulyatingki Marney, Reena Rogers, Beatrice Simpson, Ronelle Simpson, and Muntararr Rosie Williams / The National Gallery of Victoria)

 

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Meghan Quinn and the altogether routine hell of prisoner transport services

April 16, 2017 by 16 Comments

 

Meghan Quinn

Meghan Quinn is from Lewiston, Maine. Currently, she’s incarcerated in the Androscoggin County Jail, in Auburn, Maine. Like Nancy Carroll, Lauren Sierra, Roberta Blake, Theresa Wigley, Tyisha Anthony and so many other women and men who have struggled to endure the atrocities of prisoner transport, Meghan Quinn is traumatized by her experience in the van, but at least she’s alive. Last November, Meghan Quinn suffered a five-day journey, in a cage, from Florida to Maine. The Androscoggin County Jail paid Prisoner Transport Services a little less than $1500 for five days of torture. As the Lewiston Sun Journal noted, “Quinn’s extradition is not unusual. It’s a routine process across this country to locate, collect and return defendants to answer charges.” Torture of prisoners during transport is a routine process across this country.

Meghan Quinn’s five days of hell began in Florida. She was the first in a van that would wander from prison to jail up the entire East Coast. Because the other prisoners were all men, Meghan Quinn was `separated’ from the others … for her protection. For five days, hands cuffed to belly and ankles shackled together, Meghan Quinn was locked in a cage the size of a dog crate. She was fed through the bars. She was forced to go to the bathroom, in the cage, in plain view of the other prisoners. On the third day, her period began, and she was forced to sit, without sanitary pads, for hours on end. She vomited, and was forced to sit in that as well. Another prisoner in the van with her has independently corroborated her story.

When Meghan Quinn arrived at the Androscoggin County Jail, she wrote a six-page letter describing her ordeal. She sent one copy to the judge, who appears not to have received it, and another to the Sun Journal, who followed up, which is how we know about this case, unlike so many others. In her letter, Meghan Quinn wrote, “Never, no matter how bad things have ever got in my life, have I considered suicide or wished death upon myself. But many times throughout this ride I prayed to God to take my life and put me out of the misery. I felt sexually, physically and mentally violated and humiliated.” In an interview, she added, “I don’t know, but it was just something I couldn’t deal with. And most of the reason I wanted to sue them is all I could think is how many other people they do this to.”

Since the Sun Journal published its expose, District Attorneys for five Maine counties have stopped their contracts with Prisoner Transport Services. While that’s a start, Prisoner Transport Services is typical, not exceptional, in the industry. Since 2000, close to 30 people have been killed or seriously injured in more than 50 crashes on private prisoner transport vehicles, and that’s the tip of the iceberg. Since 2000, at least 14 women have alleged that they were sexually assaulted by guards while being transported. Throughout, Prisoner Transport Services has stonewalled everyone who tries to investigate, from the federal government to news agencies to lawyers’ representing prisoners. The Marshall Project and The New York Times wrote a scathing report last July. The Marshall Project and The New York Times wrote another scathing report last month. Last June, Women In and Beyond published Nancy Carroll’s personal account of her traumatic journey. Lawsuit after lawsuit is filed. Many are won. In 2000, a law, Jeanna’s Act, was passed which was meant to regulate and set standards for prisoner transport. In seventeen years, was enforced once.

Why do these rolling caravans of violence and torture keep crisscrossing the country? Because no one, other than the usual suspects, cares. As Judith Meyer, Executive Editor of the Lewiston Sun-Journal said, “In the case of Meghan Quinn, I would say the cost was much too high to her, and to the men who were on the transport van, at least one of whom we’ve heard from, who said it was just awful to watch what she was going through.” What happened to Meghan Quinn? The absolutely routine torture of women and men across the United States.

 

(Photo Credit: Sun-Journal) (Video Credit: Sun-Journal / YouTube)

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Nancy Carroll tells her interstate prisoner transport story

June 22, 2016 by 10 Comments

On March 4th at approximately 6:00 am, I found myself being summoned from a holding cell in the Lake County Jail, in Waukegan, Illinois, to be transported back to Tarrant County, Texas, for six days in a transport van across the country.

I’m a real estate attorney from Southlake, Texas, an affluent suburb of Dallas. Prior to 2016 I had never been charged with or committed a criminal act or incurred an incident record of any kind beyond a speeding ticket. I’ve never had any mental or medical issues or been medicated beyond Advil, antibiotics and blood pressure medicine. Today I am a newly self-professed civil rights activist, wife, mother of three minor children living in Texas on an ankle monitor awaiting indictment for allegations of embezzling and theft from the title company I owned, Millennium Title. In December 2015 through January 2016 following a prolonged audit by the Texas Department of Insurance, I began negotiations for the sale of my company. After failing to sell the company, I decided in January 2016 to put the company into receivership and move to the Chicago area near my younger sister’s family to start over. At the time I moved, no criminal charges were threatened or pending against me. On February 11th, two weeks after moving and with no notice, I was arrested in Illinois on an arrest warrant from Texas. I would spend nearly 30 days sitting in an Illinois county jail waiting for the state of Texas to file a case against me so that the extradition process could begin. My family and I were told I would be transported to Texas by airplane and accompanied by a Federal Marshall. That was not the case.

My six days of transport from Illinois to Texas were the most dangerous, terrifying, demeaning and inhumane conditions I have ever witnessed. The private transport companies hired by jails and prisons to move inmates across the country disregard all basic human rights and protections.

During the interstate transportation process, there was no attempt to classify inmates. Women and men, violent and non-violent offenders were transported together. Nonviolent inmates awaiting trial are transported alongside convicted violent inmates with little or no supervision. For six days, my family called to obtain a status report on my transport and to confirm my safety; no information of any kind was provided, allegedly for “safety reasons”. There is absolutely no oversight or supervision of the drivers placed in charge of inmates’ health and safety while traveling across the country. Furthermore, the policies and procedures for monitoring the condition and safety of the transport vehicles are inadequate or improperly implemented.

What follows is a brief description of two legs of my return to Texas. The first was from Lake County, Illinois, to Mississippi County, Missouri. We had two drivers. I was refused my prescribed blood pressure medication. Upon arrival at the Carver County Jail in Minnesota, my blood pressure was recorded at 180/100, or hypertensive urgency. Carver County contacted the transport company, which refused to authorize blood pressure medicine. Carver County medical authorities finally paid for and authorized the blood pressure medicine.

In St. Cloud, Minnesota, an inmate suffering from pneumonia and on a regimen of prescribed antibiotics was picked up. The St. Cloud jail authorities gave the driver the antibiotics, which then somehow disappeared. One driver chain-smoked the entire trip, to the dismay of an inmate who was asthmatic and the prisoner suffering pneumonia.

We would drive for over eight hours, without a stop. We would be shackled for eight to ten hours, again without a break. Not surprisingly, inmates would urinate and defecate in the van.

We were in the freezing northern Midwest winter, and the van had no working heat system. We were not provided with adequate winter clothing.

Only one of the two drivers actually drove, which meant driving in excess of the Department of Transportation allowed hours of non-stop driving. The van’s headlights didn’t work. At one point, there were twelve inmates crammed into the van for over eight hours.

Male inmates would scream sexual obscenities and threats day and night at the female inmates demanding sexual acts and for the female inmates to expose themselves. I was seated next to an alleged violent male inmate in a segregation cage for over 36 hours. He would reach through open areas of the cage and grab for me, verbally threaten to find my family and me and inflict unspeakable violence.

The second leg of my return was from Mississippi County, Missouri, to Tarrant County Texas. We had two drivers again. In Missouri, the primary driver received a speeding ticket. He consistently drove over 85 miles per hour.

After 7 1/2 hours of no restroom, water or food, inmates asked the drivers as to when there would be another rest stop break. The primary driver responded by shouting obscenities and in then accelerated the van and immediately slammed on the brakes, throwing inmates into one another, on the floor and onto the metal caging in the interior of the vehicle. One inmate suffered severe lacerations to his ring finger and foot and another suffered lacerations to her chin and face. All injuries were witnessed by the sheriff on duty at the next rest stop in Johnson County Texas. The drivers provided no medical attention.

(Photo Credit: PTS of America)

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