HELP FREE THE SCOTT SISTERS WRONGFULLY INCARCERATED AND DENIED PROPER MEDICAL CARE IN MS

This story sadly enough is not an unusual one and makes the estimate I just received of about $7500 of dental care I need due to the conditions I have been put through in dealing with wrongful imprisonment and injustice here in Alaska seem like nothing. They were charged with stealing $11 which they deny. Some boys admitted they did it and were then coerced into testifying against the Scotts, which is a typical technique used by many prosecutors in many states to get false testimony to have someone they have issues with incarcerated. They were young girls at the time and were both given double life sentences, yes that is correct, double life sentences for being convicted of stealing $11. Even if they were guilty which the evidence shows is not the case all I can say is, WTF. The judge apparently had some issues with one of their relatives and these women who have been incarcerated for 16 years are black which carries harsher sentences in many places. Here in Alaska it is mainly the native people who are arrested more, get longer sentences, and are given technical violations frequently by the department of probation to reincarcerate them, especially out of the Nome court.

The food in the prison systems is very unhealthy. They use the cheapest supplies they can find. The sources of protein are full of nitrates, hormones, and antibiotics putting an extra toxic load on people who are not getting enough antioxidants. They use tons of sugar and even worse corn products, which block hormones that signal fullness as well as causing weight gain in general. They cause spiking blood sugar which in those who are more prone to diabetes due to genetics is very dangerous to their health. For a period of time people can have high blood sugars and have vague symptoms, of course just like Alaska, Mississippi probably does not check inmate blood work. Then they will put an inmate in solitary confinement who has health problems due to them writing letters or grievances trying to get help. Yes, they do that in Alaska too, They attempted to do it to me, but a probation officer prevented them from doing it. BTW, that was medical and nursing staff that tried to have me segregated and disappeared my grievances. Segregation is often used as a retaliation by corrections officers. I heard women asking for diabetic diets and also vegetarian diets due to their religious beliefs. They were told they do not provide them. This is a violation of  constitutional rights of inmates. The tormenting that comes from the prison staff causes stress hormones to be released that cause health problems which include hypertension, weight gain, anxiety disorders, PTSD, depression, and immune system dysfunction.

One of the sisters, Jamie was put in segregation for a very long period of time for being somewhere in the gym she was not supposed to be, rather draconian don't you think? If they don't like you because you are mounting written protests about the conditions in the prison they will use any excuse to segregate you. Why do you think prison officials here in Alaska would not let the ACLU in segregation or the mental health units when they did their survey? Because everything I have written about is true.

Jamie developed insulin dependent diabetes and probably had it for a long time while begging for help. Since most of my relatives are from Mississippi, including my parents I know the way things work there is family is allowed to assist sick relatives. In hospitals they have less nursing care because the families often do a lot of the hands on physical care. In the prison family members who are incarcerated together are often allowed to help a sick relative. By isolating Jamie they helped to deteriorate her condition psychologically because those isolated from human contact become mentally ill, people in renal failure become very depressed to begin with, and she had very little ability to exercise. She was not allowed contact with her sister which could have helped decrease the stress response in her body which also played a part in decreasing her psychological well being and decreased the ability of her immune system to protect her from infections. She developed renal failure from the diabetes. This is one of the consequences of out of control untreated diabetes. They have refused her proper care which is SOP at many prisons. Wexford Health Sources is contracted by the state of Mississippi to provide healthcare to inmates(they have multiple lawsuits) and from some of the descriptions of the incidents that happened when she went for dialysis it seems they don't know what they are doing during dialysis nor with maintenance of dialysis catheters. She had a dialysis catheter in her neck which was apparently infected. When that happened it should have been removed immediately. Some of the descriptions of what happened sound like she may have been septic and that the prison medical staff do not know how to maintain the catheters properly. If she is to have continuous ongoing and non-temporary dialyisis she needs to go to the O.R. and have a fistula put in her arm to prevent infections. She now has a groin catheter which is extremely high risk for infection and generally only used for patients in special units like ICU where the staff can maintain excellent care of the insertion site to prevent infection. I was never a dialysis nurse, but I did work in a renal ICU taking care of very ill renal patients who would often crash during dialysis. After my experiences with the DOC here in Alaska which practices a lot of the same things they do in Mississippi I have to say this is not longer shocking to me. I am not shocked, I am saddened and disgusted with this country. I was disgusted by a prosector who lied and a judge who sends mostly native people to jail continuously. I was then horrified by what I saw in the prison system.



Cruel and Unusual Health Care
Motherjones
How Mississippi prisoner Jamie Scott's life sentence could turn into a death sentence.

— By James Ridgeway and Jean Casella
Thu Mar. 25, 2010 3:00 AM PDT

(snip)
Jamie and Gladys say that they had already left the scene to walk home when the robbery took place. The state insisted they were an integral part of the crime, and in fact had set up the victims to be robbed. Wherever the truth lies, trial transcripts clearly reveal a case based entirely on the testimony of the victims and two of the teenaged co-defendants—who had turned state's evidence against the Scott sisters in return for eight-year sentences—and a prosecutor who appears determined to demonize the two young women.

Jamie and Gladys were not initially arrested for the crime. But ten months later, the 14-year-old co-defendant—who had been in jail on remand during that time—signed a statement implicating them. When questioned by the Scotts' attorney, the boy confirmed that he had been "told that before you would be allowed to plead guilty" to a lesser charge, "you would have to testify against Jamie Scott and Gladys Scott." The boy also testified that he had neither written nor read the statement before signing it. It had been written for him by someone at the county sheriff's office, he said, and he "didn't know what it was." But he had been told that if he signed it "they would let me out of jail the next morning, and that if I didn't participate with them, that they would send me to Parchman [state penitentiary] and make me out a female"—which he took to mean he would be raped. The 18-year-old co-defendant who testified against the Scott sisters also said he was testifying against the Scotts as a condition of his guilty plea to a lesser charge.

This article is excellent and contains a lot of details about the situation, for more of it go to, http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/jamie-scott-gladys-scott-haley-barbour-wexford-health .  


The Scott sisters are all of us, no matter what our race is. I found out the hard way being charged with crimes you have not committted can easily happen, especially if you are outspoken about corruption. It happens to white people like me too. This sort of situation can happen if you are in the sites of some of the crooked  and incompetent people running the system of justice in this country. I am white, but the Scott sisters are me. This is partly about prejudice, but it has more to do with having a two tier system of justice, classism, and an out of control, unregulated capitalist system. The rich get competent attorneys and can prove they are innocent. The poor get public defenders who are oftten underfunded, overworked, incompetent, and because of their lack of funds are essentially a branch of the attorney general's office. They threaten 95% of their clients into taking pleas, innocence does not matter. The prison the Scotts are in uses a private company to provide medical care. Legislators were paid off to pass harsh laws and insure a large populaton of inmates and in Mississippi they do have some private prisons. More prisoners mean more money for those who run private prisons, sell supplies to prisons, and build prisons.

Mrs. Evelyn Rasco is the mother of these two women who and maintains this blog, http://freethescottsisters.blogspot.com/ . She has addresses and phone numbers, case transcripts, and more for anyone who wants to help. Tomorrow they are planning a press conference.

Mrs. Rasco and her entire family are in Mississippi to visit Jamie and Gladys as well as to participate in the 3/26 MWM/BWDL Press Conference scheduled for 12 noon in front of the Jackson, MS Capitol Bldg. at 400 High St. The organization is asking for letters of support for their campaign by 12 midnight 3/25 to be sent to nationalmwm@aol.com or officialmwm@yahoo.com. For more info call: 267-636-3802.

When are we going to stop this? It could be anyone or anyone's children who get a ride with the wrong person or have someone coerced into lying about them by a malfeasant prosecutor. When are we going to do something about the overflowing gulags in this country crammed with people who are not only innocent, harshly sentenced, mentally ill, addicted(needing treatment), or simply young and have made an immature choice(needing some guidance)? The saddest part of this story is why have we not risen up and mounted protests in the streets against it? Because we have been lied to by the government, like here in Alaska where a widely held belief is people in prisons get good healthcare. Even when the ACLU report presented their report from their survey of inmates that shows this is not true, Prison commissioner Joe Schmidt(Sarah Palin's ex-classmate and most probably ex-boyfriend) stated, he stands by the department's current health/mental health practices.

People are working to get Jamie and Gladys freed. You can sign a petition at this site: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/free-jamie-gladys/


http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37635066437 

http://www.akclu.org/PrisonRights/AlaskaPrisonReport-2010.pdfhttp://www.akclu.org/PrisonRights/AlaskaPrisonReport-2010.pdf