NYS Supreme Court Judge Blaise had a straightforward question: Where is the Sheriff? In his defense of County Sheriff David Harder, Broome County Attorney Robert Behnke had no adequate answer. Charged with contempt of court in the motion brought by Justice and the Unity for Southern Tier (JUST), Harder failed to appear.
Law and Ill-Order in Broome County
The members of JUST packing the court knew the answer: as part of a long legal contest, the Sheriff had lost the lawsuit they had brought on behalf of families and friends of those incarcerated in Harder’s jail. In his ruling on July 29th, Judge Blaise ordered Harder to reopen visitation on the pre- COVID schedule posted in the jail’s own handbook. Harder’s officers in the jail had long been telling the incarcerated that Harder wouldn’t let this happen. When the County’s appeal to delay re-opening was denied on September 22nd, Harder was thus forced to finally reopen visitation.
Yet when the County finally opened up the jail doors on September 29th, Harder defied the Judge’s ruling. To the surprise of family members knocking on the door of the jail, visitation hours were posted for highly restricted times. Harder had unilaterally reduced visiting from the pre-COVID schedule of 44 hours a week, to 15, and visiting days from five to three—with none on the weekends for persons who work or live out of town.
On the threshold of retirement, pending election of one of his former deputies, Harder was again refusing to obey state laws–and now the State Supreme Court. To observers of justice in Broome County it was another case of law and ill-order.
The JUST Response
On October 7, on behalf of JUST, Josh Cotter of Legal Services of Central NY, filed a motion and affidavits charging Harder with civil and criminal contempt of court, with personal and financial penalties.
Before the contempt hearing on October 29th, JUST members and supporters rallied in the chilly morning on the steps of the county courthouse. The gathered families and friends of the incarcerated told numerous stories of their inability to visit daughters, sons, fathers, partners, and friends under the posted hours.
Meanwhile, fees for telephone and video calls remained exorbitant. Many of the county’s poorest residents were spending close to $1000/month to maintain contact with family in the jail and provide necessary food and hygiene products. Banning visitation held a warped, punitive, financial logic here: the Sheriff had reaped $ millions in profits from his share of expensive calls and commissary purchases, outside any county control. And he spent it on personal diversions, among them his second, armored personnel carrier.
Statements from incarcerated persons and family members unable to attend the rally due to work or distance repeated these complaints:
“Does this mean my mother can’t visit me?” “I can’t visit since I work and live in Syracuse” “I keep calling but can’t get through to book a visiting hour” “I’ve spent $800-$1000 every month to talk to my husband awaiting trial” “I booked a visit with the Sheriff’s office but when I came was refused the visit” “We need to be paid back for the $ thousands we’ve spent due to him denying visitation”
Demands
JUST’s demands addressed the problems, calling for
Full five days with regular hours for visitation, extended to weekends for those who work
Pay back of exorbitant profits from video & telephone calls, and commissary purchases
Food that meets basic nutrition requirements, including that item never seen in years: fruit!
An end to the incarceration of persons with disabilities and health crises
Penalize Sheriff & County for defying state supreme court and violating the state constitution
At 11 am, after the rally, over 30 JUST supporters went through metal detectors to attend the hearing, where they were faced down by a phalanx of grim, armed court security.
The Court Hearing
At the hearing, Judge Blaise questioned both Josh Cotter of Legal Services of Central NY, acting on behalf of JUST and families, and Broome County Attorney Robert Behnke, defending Sheriff Harder. In earlier legal briefs, the County had defended continued denial of visitation on grounds of COVID precautions. This was, however, increasingly implausible, given that visitation had long since returned to nursing homes, all state prisons, and jails across the state. Indeed, the Sheriff had long shown indifference to COVID, never requiring his staff to get vaccinated. And when visitation opened up on September 29th, there was no social distancing or masking.
The excuse for the Sheriff’s actions put forth submitted in court by Behnke on October 28th was thus a new one: Harder’s restricted hours were said to follow a formula provided by an official of the State Commission of Correction (SCOC). This formula had never been seen before, and certainly wasn’t in any posted regulations of the SCOC. The Commission had not met and approved this application either, as is required for variances or modifications of jail practices. Nor had one of the three SCOC Commissioners, all previous Sheriffs or Wardens, signed off on it. It was, rather, a SCOC administrator who had negotiated the new visitation regime directly with Harder. This was, as the Judge suggested, a last minute invention.
As JUST’s lawyer rightly pointed out: visitation rights are guaranteed in the state constitution, and rights can’t be limited by county officials.
The Judge’s ruling is expected in a week. Stay tuned.
Some good news: Sheriff Harder has lost again. And local activists are celebrating, again. This time it’s not another wrongful death lawsuit, or a state investigation: even worse for the Sheriff and the County, it is the inner workings of the jail.
For years now, County Sheriff Harder has unilaterally prevented hundreds of local residents from visiting their loved ones in his jail. On August 8th, NYS Supreme Court Judge Blaise III decreed that Harder and Broome County had violated the constitutional human rights of those incarcerated in the county jail. Harder has until September 5th to re-open in-person visitation.
The lawsuit was filed by Legal Services of Central New York, on behalf of family members, and Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier, an activist group which had led local protests. When the judge indicated he would rule against the County and Sheriff, Harder disingenuously proposed a few hours of visitation on a few days a week, which would have cut former jail visiting hours by over 80%. The judge rejected this outright, requiring instead a return to the pre-pandemic visiting schedule with social distancing. Those incarcerated in the jail, and their families and friends outside, are ecstatic at the prospect of family visiting again.
Of the 300 local residents in the jail, fewer than 50 are convicted and serving time—almost all the rest are awaiting trial, largely on misdemeanor charges. When COVID struck and courts closed, the jail was closed to outsiders. So years have now gone by without persons able to see mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, and beloved neighbors. Not even lawyers could consult privately with defendants and—unlike in other jails—no confidential phone line has ever been provided for the incarcerated to consult with lawyers.
Public and medical facilities everywhere have now opened up. Masks, social distancing, and temperature checks are familiar in all these places. The courts are now open to the public, with trials being held in county courtrooms without mask requirements. Visitation has long returned at hospitals and even nursing homes. All state prisons and many jails have returned to in-person visitation, including jails in surrounding counties.
But not in Broome County. Why? Is it just stubbornness and meanness on the part of the Sheriff and the county executive and legislators who support and finance him?
Follow the money: how to profit from COVID
One suspects it is financial and political power at stake: there is too much money involved, and one dare not challenge the powerful and unchecked Sheriff, long backed by the County Executive and county legislators. Turning truth on its head, they will tell you visitation is too costly, it would require too many officers to reopen visitation.
What they won’t tell you is that it takes only 3 or 4 officers to staff the visitation room. And that Harder has a budget—over $30 million—that grows every year and now pays for over 190 correctional officers. And he hasn’t got three persons to manage visitation again?
Restricting in-person visitation has a financial logic: COVID was used to channel yet more money into Harder’s hands, some from the county coffers, and over $1 million from families of the incarcerated. How? Well, the county just gave him $7 million more from federal COVID recovery funds, money that might have been directed to the desperately needed and severely underfunded youth, mental health, and substance use programs.
Does any elected official take a look at Harder’s expenditures ? Despite protests by local activists, the jail was expanded in 2016, in order to increase its size to 600 beds, at a cost of another $7 million. In recent years the jail population has fallen from over 500 to below 300 local residents, of which less than 50 are convicted of any crime and serving time. One doesn’t need to look any further than the jail budget to find fiscal irresponsibility. How does funding inexorably get increased while the number incarcerated falls so significantly?
The result? The cost to incarcerate one person is now over $100,000 per year, more than double what it was five years ago.
Year $ per person
2016 $51,447
2017 $53,992
2018 $59,563
2019 $61,282
2020 $90,251
2021 $74,510
2022 $106,881 (Jan-June average)
For the cost of holding one person awaiting trial for a year on a misdemeanor charge, the county could send 17 local youth to SUNY-Broome tuition-free. That’s the price of excess policing, prosecution and incarceration.
And these figures don’t include the Sheriff’s personal slush funds, unaccounted for in the county budget, that nevertheless accumulated rapidly due to COVID. How so? With visitation closed, families turned to expensive phone and then video calls. While it costs less than 4 cents (a minute?) to call your family from a state prison, it costs 25 cents from Harder’s jail. And due to county contracts, the Sheriff skims off 44% of all phone call costs. More flows in from video calls, video viewing, and selling goods at unbelievable prices in commissary (and, yes, outside shipments from vendors were outlawed).
Profits from telephone calls alone doubled from 2019 to 2021, reaching over $1 million per year now, according to FOIL data. Video and commissary profits have to be added on top of that. All this flows into the Sheriff’s private hands. State laws require profits from commissary be spent on the rehabilitation of the incarcerated. So how is Harder allowed to spend his profits on armored personnel carriers, lawnmowers, and retirement parties? Of course, the county auditor won’t follow up. Is it any wonder that COVID has been so good to Harder’s personal piggy bank?
More losses coming, political and personal
JUST’s victory is a strike for justice for the poor and disproportionately Black residents who are channeled into the jail. It follows in the footsteps of a series of punishing state investigations and lawsuits lost by the county. And yet, the county may face more losses:
The Husar family filed a $5 million lawsuit over the wrongful death of their son
The beating of a Black/Latino youth is being contested in a court filing
The abuse of a trans women is contested in another suit
Akshar kicking off Harder’s 2018 re-election campaign
Harder wasn’t among the 75 local officials and Sheriffs in attendance, and hasn’t said anything publicly on the matter since. However, he donated his outstanding campaign funds to his current department spokesperson, Captain Newcomb, who switched party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and is running against Akshar.
So don’t expect much change at the jail, regardless of who wins: both candidates have long records of service in the secrecy and abuse that surrounds the jail. Both have been involved in local scandals as deputies under Harder. Local activists and lawyers are likely to stay busy well after the coming electoral season.
Akshar for Sheriff campaign launch 2021: not a Harder in sight
What is a Bearcat? Mention the word in Binghamton and most will think of the mascot of SUNY-Binghamton’s sports teams.
For police chiefs and the sheriff it’s another animal altogether: an armored personnel carrier, most often used to carry SWAT teams into action or counter civil protest. And where there was one, there are now two.
Produced by the Lenco Corp for military use worldwide, BearCats are personnel carriers with armored steel bodies, ballistic glass capable of multiple high-powered weapon hits, and blast-resistant floors. The first local BearCat was obtained in 2019 by the Binghamton Police Department and introduced with celebration by the Republican Mayor, the Democratic County Executive, and our Republican State Senator:
Mayor David, State Senator Akshar, County Executive Garnar and BPD BearCat team
The City was playing catch up here: over five years earlier the Broome County Sheriff got himself an armored personnel carrier, a surplus apartheid war machine, a South African Casspir:
Not to be outdone by the City, Sheriff Harder has apparently retired the Casspir and purchased his own BearCat for his own SWAT team–at the cost of $273,000.
Broome County BearCat
It isn’t clear at all what such a war vehicle will do. Last year the Broome SWAT team was primarily used for drug raids on unarmed persons—and the constant policing of protests and parades. Indeed, the most notable use of the BearCat according to the Sheriff’s own annual report was its dispatch to a Black Lives Matter protest in Troy NY (2020 Annual Report, p. 36).
And where did the $273,000 come from? You won’t find it in Broome County Budget sheets. It took a freedom-of information request to find the source: the pockets of the poorest residents of the county, those incarcerated in the Sheriff’s jail.
Out of sight and unmonitored, the Sheriff reaps huge profits from running a monopoly telephone and video exchange for those incarcerated in the jail. A 15 minute call that costs 65 cents from a state prison costs at least $3.75 from the Broome jail and can run up to $9.95 with setup and billing charges. The Sheriff skims off 44% of revenues from all telphone calls and 20% of all video tablet use. Profits in 2020 came to $373,000 and paid for everything from the BearCat to retirement party banners to outfitting conference rooms. Under COVID, profits rose to $655,000 in 2021.
These revenues rest on the exploitation of families desperate to remain in contact with loved ones locked behind closed doors, out of sight. As state and local authorities relax COVID restrictions it is harder and harder to justify keeping in-person visitation closed. State prisons have long ago reinstated in-person visitation with social distancing. County jails across the state, including those in nearby counties, have done the same. In an effort to force the same, Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier and families of the incarcerated have filed a lawsuit with the assistance of Legal Services of Central NY demanding a return to family visits.
Sheriff Harder has refused to comment, so far. County officials are silent as well.
The Sheriff and County have lost a regular series of lawsuits over wrongful deaths and the abuse of the incarcerated, and face ongoing lawsuits over the beating of youth, another death, and the abuse of trans women in the jail. Those with family members in the jail look forward to JUST winning this lawsuit
It will not be easy to deter the militarization of local police forces: State Senator Akshar, sponsor of the Binghamton BearCat, recently announced the retirement of Sheriff Harder and his candidacy to replace Harder (Harder himself has said nothing). His democratic opponent is, like Akshar, a veteran Sheriff’s Deputy and long-term Harder supporter.
In an interview with USA Today, Broome County District Attorney Michael Korchak defended his inaction over white supremacist threats. It was up to the Susquehanna Valley school and the State Police, and not his office he said, to act on the mass shooting threats made by student Payton Gendron:
“The school did what they were supposed to do and called state police” Korchak said. “And state police did what they were supposed to do and referred him for a mental health evaluation”… “What more could have been done?”
Indeed. What more?
There is more than a bit of white-washing going on here.
Perhaps Korchak has forgotten that he funds retired police officers’ jobs in schools all around Broome County—including in the Susquehanna School District where a former Vestal Police officer and SWAT team leader has worked for 12 years as a school resource officer. What does all this policing and surveillance directed by his office produce?
Korchak is not alone for policing Broome’s schools is big business. Last December Broome County Sheriff Harder, who runs his own school officers, responded to reports of social media threats by reassuring the public and press that there was “no evidence” behind the rumors. Local school officials did the same.
People and the press need to ask questions.
What do these police officers patrolling schools do, day in and day out? Perhaps they don’t hear or report violent threats from within the school? Do they not know when the State Police are investigating their students? Or perhaps they are incapable of hearing, much less acting on, violent racist threats?
Might their training and experience in all-white police forces be a factor?
Or are they simply representing and enforcing the county’s racialized record of arrests, prosecution, and incarceration?
The Color of Justice Broome County Black Incarceration Rate: 2,076 Broome County white incarceration rate: 292 NYS white incarceration rate: 158 NYS Black Incarceration Rate: 1,123
Or might racist behavior be the norm and legitimized? Reports from inside the county jail are especially grim, as in one man’s statement to a local activist organization that
“I’ve been called Nxxxx, monkey, and other degrading names… when we speak up we get punished by being put in the Box… animals get treated better than Broome County inmates.”
Its a common report by incarcerated Black persons. A licensed clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience in juvenile correctional settings testified in a recent lawsuit that “youth spoke of the Correctional Officers carrying batons they used to beat the kids; they reported that the COs refer to the baton as their ‘nxxx beaters’.” The Sheriff and County lost that lawsuit.
Another ongoing lawsuit recounts how a local teenager was stripped and beaten while being told “do what you’re told, N-word”).
Might it be that constant protests and lawsuits against overtly racist behavior by city, county, and university police and schools need to be recognized and pursued?
And these are only a sample of the cases that have been publicly reported in the press and to county legislators, the NYS Attorney General’s office, and elected officials.
***
There is a lesson here that local and state officials are working mightily to cover up: the problem of racism cannot be isolated to “exceptional” or “evil” individuals, it is systemic, reproduced daily by the forces and administrations of the city, county, and state.
On Violence in Broome County: Why is gun violence increasing? And crime not?
That’s a paradox that you won’t hear from local media or elected officials. The stories they bleat at us repeat a fearful line: violent crime is escalating and threatens us all, daily. And people across the county and state clearly have a heightened fear of crime as a result. Sheriffs, police chiefs, and elected officials now amplify this fear to demand we rollback criminal justice reforms and refill emptying jails and prisons. But have criminal justice reforms had this effect, and what do we do?
Sheriff Harder and Regional Sheriffs vs. Reforms
Bail reforms passed in 2019 eliminated bail for most misdemeanor and non-violent charges. Opponents propose new legislation to grant judges more autonomous power to incarcerate “dangerous” persons and imprison those with substance use and mental health problems. State Senator Frederick Akshar and past Binghamton Mayor Richard David have launched a statewide campaign towards this end, as have current Sheriff David Harder and regional Sheriffs.
Rolling back reforms would be accompanied by more funding for police, prosecution, and incarceration. New York’s New Mayor Adams and President Biden agree. Governor Hochul and conservative Democrats, including Broome County Executive Jason Garnar, have conceded and proposed their own 10 point program to rollback recent reforms.
None of these advocates for more incarceration have produced systematic evidence or analysis of the impact of reform to support their legislative proposals. Simply put, the facts and data we have don’t match these fearful visions—as suggested by the seeming paradox between fears of rising crime and actual crime rates. To unpack these contradictions we need to take a straightforward look at crime and violence.
Crime? What Crime?
Start with the crime situation. New York State statistics show that index (serious) crime rates for Broome County have steadily declined over the last four decades and actually fell significantly from 2017 to 2020 (2021 county figures are not yet released).
Source: NYS, Division of Criminal Justice Services
The apex violent crime, murder, is rare in Broome County, averaging but five a year over the last thirty years, including the last five years. Robbery, property theft, burglaries, and motor vehicle theft are also down over the last five to ten years.
One conclusion: the propagated fear of a widespread crime wave due to bail and other reforms doesn’t match the reality we face.
What has notably increased in the last year is the incidence of gun violence. This reverses recent downward trends: state data for the City of Binghamton show that the number of persons injured or killed by gun violence fell from 7 to 4 over 2017 to 2020, but rose to 11 and 14 respectively in 2021.
Broome County is not exceptional here: similar increases have been reported from around the country.
Here we have problem.
Why? Guns, Poverty, Policy
Why is gun violence up? And what might be done about it?
There is little if any evidence that reforms have systematically produced more violent crime. Increases in gun violence have occurred equally in city and states that have and have not adopted bail and related reforms. Data analysis from the Brennan Center concludes simply that “there is no clear connection between recent crime increases and the bail reform law enacted in 2019, and the data does not currently support further revisions to the legislation.” Revised state data are more explicit, confirming that less than 2% of nearly 100,000 released related to the state’s changed bail laws resulted in a rearrest on a violent felony charge while another case was pending. And that’s down from nearly 4 percent from the prior data set.
Would locking up more persons help, as the blustery rhetoric of politicians insists? The clear answer is no. Indeed a good case can be made that jail time increases crime and violence. When people get sent to jail to await trial, overwhelmingly for misdemeanor charges, they most often lose their jobs, apartments and belongings, and become unable to support themselves or their family. Jailing the poor generates poverty, homelessness, and social instability–while the powerful and wealthy post bail and go home from court to their families.
There are many local examples, although few make it in to press. Charged with 87 accounts of bank fraud for kiting 3,600 checks, local billionaire Adam Weitsman awaited trial at home (and was able to afford to settle with a $1 million federal fine and 8 months in prison out of a possible 30 year sentence). As the local Press and Sun-Bulletin editorialized on the case, “the US justice system has long been more lenient with ‘clever businessmen’ than street criminals” (January 16, 2004, p.10) Senator Thomas Libous, charged with a felony account of lying to the FBI, and his son Mathew charged with federal tax fraud, awaited trial at home as well by each paying $50,000 bail. Absent reform, this is how the system works: the poor go to jail and the rich go home. We see these disparities every day in local courts. Bail reform for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies has begun to correct these inequities.
Has “defunding the police,” that vilified phrase, led to a permissive crime spree? Despite all the fearful talk by politicians and law enforcement officials, funding for the police, prosecutors, and the courts has increased everywhere. Defunding certainly hasn’t happened in Broome County where the number of deputies and district attorneys and funding for them has steadily increased under both Republican and Democratic County Executives—despite falling crime and a drop in the daily jail count from over 500 local persons to below 300 recently. The use of force by police has hardly been hamstrung despite the wave of protests before, during and after Black Lives Matter. Far from it: the number of persons killed by police has steadily risen across the county and set a record number in 2021.
Common sense and work by justice studies scholars point to more plausible forces behind increasing violence and particularly gun violence. In all these areas we need more hard-headed research.
Weapons matter as scholars, police and their critics all agree. A recent profusion of guns into our streets and cities has been noted by many. That’s certainly true locally. Almost ten years ago the County Sheriff reported 23,000 pistol permits alone, and the number has been rising significantly recently. Neither local nor state authorities release data on guns, so the trend is hard to analyze. What we do know is that rising gun purchases nationwide during the covid outbreak have been directly associated with rising violence.
Rising unemployment and poverty, sub-standard wages, and a lack of housing and basic services have long been recognized as correlates of increased insecurity and violence. Broome County is especially susceptible along these dimensions: our poverty rate is the second highest of the state’s 62 counties. Affordable housing is in very short supply as regularly reported by the press and local activists. Homelessness has reportedly increased over 200% in the last decade. And as with incarceration, these factors are directly correlated with not just poverty but race.
And almost all analysts point to the as yet uncertain impact of COVID, which considerably exacerbated the sources and likelihood of conflict. It should not surprise us that even road rage shootings are double what they were prior to the pandemic. As we all know personally, social isolation and the ever-present threat of serious illness and death have heightened the levels of anxiety, anger, and conflict that exacerbate violence. These factors overlap with poverty, coalescing as in the past in poor neighborhoods, where rising levels of violence have often been concentrated.
What is to be done?
What has worked? There is almost no evidence that more policing, already at historically high levels, offers relief. Police invariably enter after shootings and violence, and lack the ability and resources to treat persons in mental or substance use distress. Introducing armed and uniformed persons to confront unarmed persons undergoing a psychotic crisis all too often results in more violence and even death—as occurred in the only incident resulting in the death of a county or municipal officer in near twenty years.[i]
What might alleviate social causes of violence has been an increasing concern nationwide. In both large and small cities innovative projects exist, often with proven track records. Two examples demonstrate the work being done.
Most common and effective have been community-based violence interrupter programs that have spread across the country with documented success. Composed of trusted survivors of youth and gun violence, interrupters unlike police are skilled and trained community members who intervene and reach out to those at the center of gun violence. Interrupters work to address incipient conflicts in their neighborhoods through non-violent means—and provide links to supportive services for housing, education, and employment.
Locality, trust, and respect matter here. Interrupters come from and live in their disadvantaged neighborhoods. This is in stark contrast to local police departments and the county sheriff, who have few members from or live in Black, Latinx, or disadvantaged communities (Broome County has even removed the requirement that county employees including officers live in the county).
A second group of new programs tackle how to work with persons in mental health and substance use distress. Currently police are the first responders, and the local jail has become the de facto mental health and substance use treatment center—a process that cannot but fail to address root causes as indicated by ever-rising substance use and deaths in and outside the jail. Cities across the state and county are increasingly relying trained mental health and substance use response teams which call upon police only in the infrequent cases involving weapons. These project take different forms, from independent and community-based stabilization centers for those in distress, to teams of street-level mental health and substance use social workers on call and dispatched by 911 and other agencies.
Providing alternatives to law enforcement are critical for persons in distress and conflict—including both victims and survivors. Many in our poorer and most marginalized communities are unwilling to access services directed by or tied to the police—as is current the case in Broome County where current and former police direct mental health outreach services. This reluctance is particularly the case among Black, Latinx, LGBTQ, immigrant and domestic violence survivors.
Moving Forward
In recent weeks, social workers and community activists have pressed the Governor and elected officials to abandon the failed policing and incarceration projects of the past, and turn to long-term, community-centered responses to harm and violence. The recent call from over 100 organizations across the state laid this out clearly: invest $1 billion in community-led gun violence programs and other victim and survivor services. This past month Black-led marchers against gun violence in Harlem demanded the same. We need to abandon the incarceration policies that have failed us in the past and pursue more productive and just policies in the coming years. Wise policymakers and representatives realize we can’t afford to do otherwise.
Harlem March vs. Gun Violence Feb 3 2022
Notes
[i] The reference here is to the tragic case of Johnson City Officer David Smith confronting James Clark, an unarmed medical technician undergoing a psychotic break outside Wilson Hospital in Johnson City in 2014. Clark was able to seize Officer Smith’s gun and kill Smith; Clark was then shot and killed by Officer Louis Cioci. A 204 page investigation by the police force itself produced no explanation; the family of Clark sued Binghamton and Johnson City for failing to follow protocols and training on how to handle persons in mental distress. Smith was the last local county or municipal police officer to be killed while on duty since 2002 (Binghamton, Johnson City, Endicott, Vestal, Whitney Point, Broome County Sheriff).
A related op-ed was published in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, April 10, 2022
If you had to design a system to spread COVID-19 in Broome County, how would you do it? Follow the sheriff and county officials in three, easy steps.
Step One: Local officials have sought to isolate the county, terminating all bus service into and out of Binghamton, closing hotels to visitors, and demanding that any newcomers quarantine for fourteen days. This is all reversed when it comes to Sheriff Harder making $ millions for the county by bringing in persons from distant areas and renting out cells at $85 to $250/day. Over the last year over 50 cells on average were rented to federal and state agencies:
Step Two: You mix this influx with COVID-19 in the jail, as inmates move between pods and everyone shares tight quarters for eating and living. There is no possibility of the county’s mandatory social distancing being applied in the jail. There is no ready provision of sanitizer to inmates, and the recently-supplied masks are handed out so infrequently as to be useless according to CDC regulations. Symptomatic persons quarantined in isolated medical cells are moved out and mixed with newcomers with unknown COVID-19 status. Persons working in the kitchen and laundry are reportedly moving across the jail, with some having been transferred into medical isolation.
Inmate:Social distancing? The bunk beds are 18” apart!
Step Three: Having created the jail as the “hotspot” with the highest rate of infection in the county, you then spread this into the community with no constraint or followup. Over 150 correctional officers work at the jail, daily moving in and out and going home to their families. Well over another hundred persons work in the Sheriff’s complex doing the same (which is likely the reason the County Executive Jason Garnar moved his daily press briefings out of the complex after testing revealed the high rates inside). Since jails hold persons on short sentences, persons are released regularly, with few if any reentry services provided by the county and no provisions for self-isolation. As far as can be determined there is absolutely no tracing at all and no testing after people leave the jail.
Is it any wonder that the county never reports on the number being tracked or quarantined after being infected with COVID-19 at the jail, including correctional officers, civilian staff, medical workers, food contractors, and transferred or released persons?
There is a reason other sheriffs, district attorneys, and judges, and even Trump’s attorney general, have released short-term, medically compromised, non-violent and other offenders: jails and prisons are petri dishes for COVID-19, incubating and then inexorably spreading the virus into surrounding and distant communities. Broome officials have however other designs, for which we are all paying dearly.
County Executive Garnar: “He has done a really good job in preventing the spread of the virus”
There are at least 22 positive COVID-19 tested persons in the jail with a population of approximately 450 persons (COs and incarcerated), and 290 positive cases in the county with a population of 190,000.
April 12th: Sheriff deputies practicing social distancing with PPE while attempting to shut down a public protest over COVID-19 in the jail
Why is it so hard to get basic facts about the extent of COVID-19 infections and their spread in Broome County? Weeks and weeks of protests and public pressure have finally produced a few details and the naming, reluctantly, of a few local hotspots. Prime among these is the jail, as predicted for months by local community organizations and activists. But what is being done? To listen or watch most local media reports we hear only the official line: don’t worry, be happy, all is good!
The local NPR station WSKG has written and broadcast successive defenses of the Sheriff and the jail (e.g. by Natalie Abruzzo here) as has Channel 12 WBNG (e.g. here). Not to be outdone, today the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin published an article by Anthony Borrelli on the front page of the paper. It is as fine a defense as one might imagine of the wonderous work done by the county to make the jail, in the Sheriff’s words, the “safest place“ in the county. (One does wonder how it could be so, given the reportedly 22 COVID-19 cases and the many more–numbers unknown–waiting to be tested if the county ever gets an adequate number of tests.)
The article is a clear counter to the New York Post piece from last week which cited the incarcerated at some length about the spread of infection and the lack of safety in the jail. Of course no person inside was apparently interviewed by Borelli (or WSKG and others), no criticism or critic referenced (JUST’s website and social media list many quotes from persons inside on the coronavirus threat), no physical layout of the jail noted or observed, no oversight body contacted.
Incarcerated: “Social distancing? our beds are 18″ apart!”
Well, the last is understandable since there is no real oversight, neither by the state nor local authorities like the Broome County Health Department even though the jail is now the prime incubator and spreader of COVID-19 locally. Denialism today has a history: for years the county has has turned a blind eye to medical malfeasance and excessive deaths, even as the county and jail have been steadily losing wrongful death and abuse lawsuits.
All these claims can be denied now as in the past. For as reported by Borelli,
“Harder, on Monday, said the inmates’ claims were false.”
That’s all the public needs to know.
This follows the media’s earlier felicitous reporting of the Sheriff’s words that:
“Medically everything is going well, there’s been no infection whatsoever.” (March 24)
and
“[Inmates] are safer inside our facility. They aren’t out in the general public where the disease is prevalent” (March 26)
What do we do now? Even the county has to acknowledge the widespread spread of coronavirus in the jail, while over 300 people move into and out of the building every day. Perhaps someone might ask the County Executive a few pointed questions at his next, closed to the public, press conference? Or really listen to those inside and their families, and investigate in some detail? Denialism now as in the past comes with deadly consequences.
April 14 protest: Who has masks on? Who is practicing distancing?
Broome County Sheriff David Harder repeatedly tells the media there is no safer place to be than in his jail. How safe? Flouting COVID-19 state regulations, he puts his own officers and recruits in deadly danger.
We now hear directly from inside that at least two officers have tested positive for COVID-19. At least 9 persons have been pulled from their general population cells, ill and coughing, and been sent to “medical.” And this from only one of many pods.
No county official will confirm or deny these reports. How many persons, staff and incarcerated, have been tested, tested positive, and put in quarantine inside the jail itself? We don’t know. The Sheriff, the County Executive, and the Director of the County Health Department refuse to tell us. Other counties, cities, the state, and the federal government provide answers to these questions, but not local officials.
Denialism has its costs: you don’t protect persons inside, the virus incubates in crowded cells and dormitories and then spreads out into the community as scores of people move in and out of the jail daily, to and from work, to and from court, and through daily releases. Indeed one of the infected COs was reportedly a transport officer.
Denialism puts everyone in danger. Our schools, universities, and playgrounds have been shut down; we must all wash our hands, sanitize, keep our social distance. If you don’t believe the virus is a threat, you don’t do these things. And so our Sheriff in the last two weeks continues to train future officers from across the region in closed rank files, with no protection equipment, on the jail grounds, on public playgrounds nearby. Clusters of persons continue to hang out in his parking lot. Here is the evidence in living color:
The rules don’t apply to the Sheriff. He gets a waiver to putting his people in danger.
This is denied of course. Listen to Broome County Executive Jason Garner at this past Friday’s press conference (April 3, 2020), held in the Sheriff’s building itself:
The Sheriff’s office and Broome Security are going to be stepping up their enforcement of emergency orders… You can’t be on playgrounds, athletic fields. There are no gatherings allowed of any size. These are state emergency orders. They are going to be enforced… We will do anything we can to enforce them. Anything. Because it is a matter of saving lives.”
Indeed: it is a matter of saving lives, and local denialists are putting us all in danger.
Yesterday Broome County Executive Jason Garnar approved death sentences for scores of Broome County residents. There is no other way to state it. In an interview with Bob Joseph on WNBF radio, he insisted he would not approve any releases from the Broome County jail. He refused to answer any real questions: has anyone in the jail, guards or inmates been tested? Are there any cases of coronavirus there? He would not say.
Sheriffs, District Attorneys, and County Executives from
Cleveland to California, from Texas to New Jersey and Brooklyn, are releasing thousands
of persons for good reasons. Jails are
deadly for those inside them, guards and prisoners alike. As we have seen in China,
Iran, and Italy, it is perfectly predictable that coronavirus clusters incubate
in crowded cells and then spread into surrounding towns. Releasing persons is sound
public health policy, a necessary measure to prevent death inside and outside
jails and prisons.
Broome County is no exception. Who is incarcerated? It’s not dangerous local criminals.
Broome’s jail houses 346 persons,
including 29 under federal and state custody (held only to make money for the county). Of the 346, only 89 are sentenced—and for
minor crimes since persons convicted of serious crimes go to state prisons. The simple truth is that almost all persons in
the jail are innocent, awaiting trial, or charged with misdemeanors. At last
public count only 6 percent of those arrested in the county were arrested for
violent felonies.
It is impossible to protect those living and working in the
jail from the virus. Sheriff Harder brazenly postured for the press yesterday,
stating that the jail was the safest place to be. Even a child can figure out that following
even the most basic rules to prevent infection is simply impossible. Self-distance yourself from others in a
crowded pod or a double-bunked cell? Use
tissues when you cough or sneeze, when there is no ready tissue supply? Wash your hands when you have been given 4
ounces of liquid soap a week for all bathing and hand washing? Isolate yourself
when you are in a dormitory with bunk beds and shared and unclean bathrooms, toilets,
showers? Wash your hands with alcohol-based hand sanitizer when none exists
since it is contraband? Cover your mouth when you cough when your hands and
feet are shackled while in transport of because of security status? Eat food
prepared by forced labor in a distant, unsterile, unsupervised kitchen?
These are the ghastly conditions under which we keep poor local
residents, from women and men suffering from terminal illnesses, to youth who
are parole violators due to smoking marijuana, to a majority of the
incarcerated suffering from substance use disorders, disabilities, and health
problems. The incarcerated and the workers who move among them are, quite
simply, under a coronavirus death watch.
It need not be so: Broome needs to follow the example of other
countries and radically reduce the jail population.
Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier is running a social
media campaign to force elected officials, the District Attorney, and local
judges to release as many persons as soon as possible–and provide the resources
for them to self-isolate in the community.
Link
to the campaign here. And for more
news, head to the JUST webpage.
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