Ohio is hiring a leading national expert on inmate suicides in the wake of two high-profile suicide cases.
Dr. Lindsay M. Hayes, project director of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives in Mansfield, Mass., will be paid $13,125 to examine inmate mental-health assessments and other protocols and procedures, said Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Hayes’ rate is $168.75 per hour, plus travel expenses.
Mohr said Hayes will team with Fred Cohen, a law professor who is now a health-care consultant to state prisons and previously served as the federal court-appointed monitor in the settlement of a lawsuit challenging inmate medical care.
Mohr said he decided to bring in Hayes and Cohen in light of concerns because of two recent suicides — Death Row prisoner Billy Slagle on Aug. 4 and Ariel Castro on Sept. 3. Slagle was just three days away from his execution date, while Castro had served a single month of his life sentence for kidnapping three Cleveland women and holding them hostage in his home for nearly a decade.
“I care about everyone we have responsibility for, no matter what they’ve done,” Mohr said.
Hayes and Cohen will be in Ohio next month and will submit a report to Mohr by Nov. 15.
There have been 88 inmate suicides in Ohio prisons since 2000, with eight of those happening this year. Ohio’s rate of inmate suicide is below the national average.
An investigative report released Monday indicated that Clay Putnam, 19, a probationary officer on duty on Death Row the night of Slagle’s suicide, did not make his required rounds and falsified an electronic log to indicate he did.
Castro’s suicide remains under investigation. Two corrections officers were suspended in that case as well.
Ohio Civil Service Association officials remain critical of what they see as the prison administration’s failure to see that a manpower shortage is hampering the system’s ability to maintain security and prevent incidents such as suicides.
“They are looking for a fall guy. The fall guy is always going to be the corrections officer,” said Tim Shafer, the union’s operations director and a former longtime corrections officer. “They should be looking from the top down.” ..Source.. by CONUS TOC
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