NEW York Prison opens Dementia Unit for Elderly Inmates

Prisons have been dealing with the special needs of older prisoners for years, but the one here in Fishkill state prison is considered unique because it specializes in dementia-related conditions.

The unit — 30 beds on the third floor of the prison’s medical center — is a first for New York and possibly the nation, though experts say it likely won’t be the last as more people grow old behind bars.

The unit has the clean-white-wall feel of a nursing home — but for the prison bars. A marker board in the day room includes a picture of a sun with a smiley face and a reminder to “Have a great day.” The activity calendar lists puppies on Thursday and bingo on Friday. As long as they behave, patients can wander from their rooms to the day room.

“They’re still in prison,” said Fishkill superintendent William Connolly. “This is just a unique environment within a prison environment.”

Connolly said the men’s crimes are not considered in the screening process, though their prison record matters. The idea is to provide proper care and a safe environment.

“A lot of guys, when they were confined to the general population, they stayed in their rooms, they wouldn’t come out,” said nursing director Angela Maume. “They were in a cocoon.”

The average age of patients here is 62, or 26 years above the systemwide average. All have been diagnosed with some level of dementia, which in the case of some patients is related to Alzheimer’s or  AIDS.  Soe hav Parkinson’s disease and others have Huntington’s disease. Some have additional psychiatric or medical disorders.

“Some of them don’t even remember their crimes,” said Dr. Edward Sottile, medical director for the Hudson Valley prison.

The average age of New York’s prisoners is climbing. Inmates 50 and over accounted 3 percent of the prison population two decades ago, compared to 11 percent last year.

Like society as a whole, inmates are getting older as health care improves and baby boomers hit retirement age. But researchers also note that inmates are staying behind bars longer thanks to “three strikes” and other tough-on-crime laws.

Nationwide, the number of prisoners over age 50 in state and federal prisons is rising at about 8 percent a year, said sociologist Ronald Aday, author of “Aging Prisoners: Crisis in American Corrections.”

“This group is going to mirror what’s going on in our nursing homes. You have the terminally ill, you have people who have strokes in this population, you have people who have dementia,” said Aday, of Middle Tennessee State University.

Fishkill, a 1,700-inmate, medium-security prison some 70 miles north of New York City, serves as a regional medical hub for the system. Inmates can get everything from throat cultures to long-term nursing care at the modern medical center built inside the prison’s accordian-wired perimeter.

The dementia unit opened in October and is still getting up to speed. Twenty inmates from state prisons around the state — Attica, Midstate, Coxsackie, Orleans — are now patients.

Neither the American Correctional Association nor several experts in prison geriatrics were aware of any other special prison units for inmates with dementia.

Prison health care consultant Dr. Robert Greifinger said the idea makes sense because staff can be trained to deal with the special cases.

All workers on the Fishkill unit — nurses, corrections officers, housekeepers — go through a 40-hour training course to learn how to work with the cognitively impaired.

The job can be especially tricky for corrections officers, who usually must fill out a report every time they touch an inmate. Here, contact comes with the territory. Officers are trained to know that, on this ward, an outburst by an inmate could be a symptom of a troubled mind instead of a hostile act.

“A lot of times it would be construed as bad behavior,” Sottile said, “but they have no idea what they’re doing.”

Information provided by YAHOO news

Locksmith breaks into Jail

Police in Germany had to call in a locksmith to break into jail when the lock on a cell broke, trapping a prisoner inside, authorities said Wednesday.

Police in the Bavarian town of Zwiesel near the Czech border locked up the 18-year-old at the police station after he was accused of smashing a car window during May day festivities on Tuesday.

Officers planned to send the youth home the following morning, but could not open the door because of the broken lock.

We told him we’d get him out of there,” said a spokesman for local police. “We said the locksmith was coming and that if that didn’t work we’d prise the iron bars apart for him.”

The locksmith managed to spring the lock and free the prisoner.

Bondsman & Attorneys: BSO Recording inmate calls

About BSO’s Policy of Recording Outgoing Inmate Telephone Calls

Beginning on January 3, 2007, the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) Department of Detention began recording all outgoing inmate telephone calls, except those calls between the inmate and his/her counsel.

For non-attorney calls, the inmate and the recipient of the call will be notified via a pre-recorded message when a phone call is subject to recording, and the recipient will be required to consent to such recording for the call to be made.

For attorney calls, BSO’s phone service provider has created a ‘do not record’ list of all attorneys phone numbers in the tri-county area that are on file with the Florida Bar. Telephone calls from inmates to attorney phone numbers on file with the Florida Bar will not contain the message that the phone call will be recorded.

If an attorney receives a call from a client in the jail on a phone number listed with the Florida Bar and a message is heard indicating that the call will be recorded, the attorney is requested to contact the BSO Inmate Telephone Coordinator at 2601 W. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33312.

Please note that acceptance of calls from clients in the jail after hearing the message that the phone call will be recorded constitutes consent to the recording, and will result in such calls being recorded. Further, if an attorney wishes to add additional telephone numbers to the ‘do not record’ list, the attorney must send a written request on the attorney’s letterhead to the Inmate Telephone Coordinator at the above address.

Please also note that BSO’s inmate phone system prevents three-way calling from jail phones.  If the phone system detects a three-way call, which includes placing a call on hold, interoffice phone transfers, and voicemail, the phone call may automatically terminate.  Issues regarding dropped calls from the jail should be referred to the Inmate Telephone Coordinator.

Cuban Militant released on bail

Posada posts bail, could be freed

Anti-Castro Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles, accused in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner, remained in custody late Wednesday and his chances of being released from federal custody were uncertain.Posada was set to be freed Wednesday after his attorneys posted $250,000 bond, but he still faced the prospect of being held by immigration authorities.

Posada wants to return to Miami, where his wife lives, to await his May 11 trial on immigration fraud charges. The former CIA operative, who admitted to entering the country illegally from Mexico two years ago, has been ordered deported, and immigration officials could detain him after he is released from jail in Otero County, New Mexico.

A jail official said Posada was still in custody as of 10 p.m. Wednesday, but had no information on his possible release.

Posada, 79, was indicted on charges of lying to immigration authorities while trying to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. An appeals court in New Orleans on Tuesday rejected the federal government’s bid to keep Posada jailed until his trial.

He is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela, where he is accused of plotting the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner that killed 73 people. A judge ruled that he could not be deported to those countries because he might be tortured, and no other country has agreed to take him.

Posada has been jailed since March 2005, when he was caught in Miami and sent to El Paso to face immigration charges. Federal prosecutors have accused him of lying about how he came into the U.S. and other details.

Paris Hilton going to Jail ?

Thursday prosecutors will ask a judge to revoke Paris Hilton’s probation in a reckless driving case, a move that could lead to a jail term.

Following an investigation into whether the hotel heiress and reality tv star violated terms of her probation by driving last month on a suspended license.

“We’re confident we have sufficient evidence to prove that her license was suspended and that she had knowledge of that suspension,” said Nick Velasquez, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office. He declined to elaborate on the evidence, citing an ongoing investigation.

Hilton could face up to 90 days in jail if a judge finds she violated her probation, Velasquez said. A hearing was set for April 17, but Hilton attendance is not required.

In January, Hilton pleaded no contest to alcohol-related reckless driving stemming from a Sept. 7 arrest in Hollywood and was sentenced to 36 months’ probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines.

Hilton was pulled over on Sunset Boulevard on Feb. 28. Police said they saw her blue Bentley Continental GTC speeding with its headlights off. She was ticketed for misdemeanor driving with a suspended license.

Hilton’s spokesman Elliot Mintz said at the time that she wasn’t aware that her license was suspended. He declined to comment Thursday.

Foxy Brown – Rapper plead not guilty

Inga Marchand aka Foxy Brown, plead not guilty to 2 counts of misdemeanor assault charges stemming from an altercation she got into at a Pembroke Pines beauty supply store February 2007.

The judge, who had issued an arrest warrant for Brown when she failed to show up for a previous hearing, dismissed it after learning her ‘notice to appear’ had been mailed to a wrong address.

Earlier this month, Brown pleaded guilty in New York to a probation violation for leaving that state without permission for the trip to South Florida that resulted in her arrest.

During that hearing, the judge warned Brown that she could be sentenced for up to a year in jail if she violates her probation again.

Brown was on probation from a fight she got into in a N.Y. nail salon in 2004.

Crowded System?

Broward County’s jails are chronically overcrowded because the justice system moves too slowly, leaving defendants incarcerated for longer and longer periods, federal jail consultants said Friday.

The consultants, hired by the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Corrections, spread the blame evenly among the county’s law enforcement, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges, saying that the entire system needs streamlining.

“It’s not cases, it’s not population … it’s your policies and procedures,” said consultant Tim Schnacke. “You have the ability to stem the tide.”

Sheriff Ken Jenne requested the study in September because of recent overcrowding. The jail has struggled with the issue since the 1970s, when a group of inmates sued, saying that overcrowding violated their civil rights. A federal monitor still keeps an eye on jail conditions as a result of that lawsuit.

The consultants gathered data from Broward County’s five jails and presented it at the Sheriff’s Office for the first time Friday. They found that the average daily jail population jumped about 17 percent from 2002 to 2006, even though the number of defendants and criminal cases remained flat. They said the overcrowding is caused by an increase from 27 to 32 days in the average stay of a defendant during those years.

The consultants were aghast to find 160 people in jail for more than 11/2 years and 62 of those there for more than two years.

“Folks, this doesn’t happen,” said consultant Marie VonNostrand.. “We don’t chart it nationally because this doesn’t happen.”

They also found that the jails had a much larger percentage of people awaiting trial than the national average.

The consultants’ recommendations include:

Streamline early hearings to quickly take care of pleas and bail issues.

Evaluate more people for pretrial release.

Expand drug court to include repeat offenders and other drug-related crimes.

Make bond hearings more flexible.

Speed up violation of probation cases and consider not jailing those who violate their probations on technicalities.

Reduce continuances and delays in criminal cases.

Most people who heard the results weren’t surprised by the findings.

“I think it just encouraged everybody to go back and redouble their efforts,” said Jeff Marcus, chief of the Broward State Attorney’s Office’s felony division.

Public Defender Howard Finkelstein discounted most of the proposed solutions and homed in on the 975 people in jail this week with bail amounts of $5,000 or less. He said those people have been deemed a low risk to society and are being held simply because they’re poor.

“How much money you have in your possession is irrelevant to whether or not you should be released,” he said.

He suggested that people with such low bail should be released on their own recognizance if they’re poor to reduce overcrowding.

Henry W. Mack, chairman of the Broward County Public Safety Coordinating Council, said the presentation was useful. The county created the council in 1987 to solve the county’s jail overcrowding.

“I’m having some new thoughts,” Mack said. “Our next meeting is going to be a very fruitful one.”

Written by: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Nicole Richie Arrested

Nichole Richie

DUI

News Reporter Mike Kirsch Arrested

WFOR-CBS4 investigative reporter Mike Kirsch was arrested Wednesday after police say he threatened an officer during a traffic stop in Doral.

Miami-Dade Police charged Kirsch with assault on a law enforcement officer, resisting with violence and disorderly conduct.

Kirsch bonded out of the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center Wednesday night. CBS4 is a news partner with The Miami Herald.

Kirsch’s attorney, Michael Tein, said Perez approached the reporter’s car screaming and cursing in front of his wife and 3-year-old daughter.

”Michael did what any reasonable parent would do. He got out of his car and tried to calm the officer down,” Tein said.

Instead, the officer grossly overreacted and went to Taser Michael in front of his wife and daughter. Thank goodness back-up arrived.”

Tein said witnesses contradict the police version of events and an unreleased audio tape shows the officer cussing.

Miami-Dade police said Kirsch drove illegally in the left-turn lane on Northwest 114th Avenue and 42nd Street. He was ordered to stop along with two other cars.

Kirsch ”proceeded to the gate shack as if he was going to enter the community,” wrote Perez, who added Kirsch got out and began yelling.

As Perez walked toward the car, Kirsch refused to get back inside the car, she wrote. ”Is this why you became a cop?” he said, according to her report. “You’re wasting my f—— time.”

”This is when [Kirsch] came toe-to-toe with me, pushed his chest out toward my face and clenched his fists,” Perez wrote.

He refused to back down, wrote the officer, who reached for her Taser stun gun before back-up arrived.

Mike Kirsch BIO

Girlfriend Arrested for Smuggling Drugs into Jail

A woman who is accused of taking her jailed boyfriend drugs that later killed him facing murder charges.

Nine months after inmate Edward Hawkins (26) died in a Miami-Dade jail cell, police say they have his killer: a girl he met while behind bars.

Police say Melanie Mazzotti, 29, confessed to smuggling drugs to him during a visit April 8 at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in West Miami-Dade.

Hawkins, swallowed the drugs to hide them from corrections officers before returning to his cell.

Instead, he was found ”unresponsive” in his eighth-floor cell the next day by a corrections officer.

Mazzotti was charged last week with first-degree murder and introducing contraband into a county facility.

Mazzotti hid narcotics under her clothing, according to an arrest report written by Miami-Dade homicide detective Juan Capote.

She made a ”contact” visit with Hawkins, allowed on a special pass once a month.

At TGK, there are designated supervised zones with tables where couples are allowed physical contact.

Jail spokeswoman Janelle Hall said overall security, K9 sweeps and cell searches have increased since the much-publicized escape of a serial rapist in December 2005 sparked a massive review of the department.

Meanwhile, the Miami-Dade’s corrections department is still conducting an internal affairs investigation into the incident.