Activists: Detainees lack health care in jail (Home News Tribune)

Activists: Detainees lack health care in jail
Home News Tribune Online 04/19/08

By GENE RACZ
STAFF WRITER
gracz@thnt.com

MIDDLESEX COUNTY — In the wake of the recent death of an immigrant detainee held at the Middlesex County jail, a citizen activist group has called on the county freeholders to open an investigation into what it perceives as problems within the facility.
The group, New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee, is also calling on the freeholders to cancel their contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which pays the county $100 a day per detainee. The county anticipates revenues of $6.17 million in 2008 for providing ICE with use of the county jail for immigrant detainees who numbered 184 out of the total inmate population of 1,290 as of Friday.
On March 2, a man detained under the name of Arturo Alvarez died at St. Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick after suffering a heart attack at the jail on Feb. 29.
A petition signed by 93 detainees was sent to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, complaining about what the detainees called a lack of medical treatment for the heart-attack victim and another man at the jail.
"The petition tells us that Arturo made repeated attempts to see a doctor and was not allowed to see a doctor," said Jeannette Gabriel, one of the founding members of the civil rights activist group. "This is what we hear from all the detention centers, doctors are not available, people are just given Tylenol, and that's all."
The requests by the activist group were made of the freeholders at Thursday night's regular meeting where freeholder Christopher D. Rafano said he would meet separately with the group to hear their concerns.
"I'm willing to meet with the organization on the issue, as I'm willing to meet with any organization to hear concerns," said Rafano, chairman of the county's Committee of Law and Public Safety. Rafano noted the county jail has passed inspections conducted by the county, state and federal government over the year, at times with 100 percent scores.
Edmund C. Cicchi, warden of the Middlesex County county jail, noted that the facility has received yearly inspections since it entered into its contract with ICE on Dec. 1, 2001.
"We have consistently passed those inspections with 100 percent compliance, especially in the area of inmate health care," said Cicchi who said confidentiality rules precluded him from commenting on the specifics regarding the death of Alvarez.
The 72-year-old Alverez arrived from Cuba in 1980, the year of the Mariel Boat lift when 125,000 Cubans fled to the United States.
"The circumstances surrounding (the death) were investigated by us, the county, as well as the federal government," Rafano said, "and the determination was that all the proper medical protocols were followed. He died of natural causes."
The county jail contracts its health service out to Marlton-based CFG Health Systems. Rafano said the county jail bids out for health services and has used CFG "for several years."
The detainees' petition also claims that another man, Cemar Koc, complained of pain to a first-shift duty officer at the county jail but did not receive help, and after complaining to a second-shift officer, lost consciousness.
The signers of the petition are all immigrants who are detained pending review of their deportation status. The civil rights defense committee mailed letters to all 93 detainees who signed the petition and the organization received 67 back. Gabriel said the organization has plans to read from letters detailing immigrant detainee treatment at the county jail at upcoming freeholder meetings.
Nicky Newby, an organizer for the civil-rights group who also spoke Thursday, noted that "the conditions in the Middlesex County jail are not as bad as other facilities." The group said a similar detainee petition led in early 2006 decrying poor conditions at the Passaic County jail led to the termination of that county's contract with ICE and the release of many of its immigrant detainees.
Questions of adequate medical treatment aside, Newby added that "there is a constitutional question here." The group contends the big question has to do with the county being complicit in what the group considers to be unconstitutional detention of immigrants by the government.
After the Oklahoma bombing in 1996, the government decided that all criminal detainees had to be placed in criminal facilities with the caveat that they would not face punitive treatment. Under the 1996 Anti-Terrorism legislation, aggravated felonies were redefined to include many small matters — like jumping a subway turnstile.
"The immigrant detainees receive the same level of care as other inmates, and they're in their own unit," said Rafano of the conditions at the county jail, which is larger than many other county jails designed to hold inmates on a more temporary basis.