Following a rash of deaths at the Allegheny County Jail, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has authorized an independent review by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. The external investigation of jail deaths is a welcome and long-overdue step by a county executive who has been missing-in-action as problems and controversies have engulfed the jail over the last two years. Monday’s announcement came a day after 78-year-old Ronald Andrus became the jail’s fifth fatality in 2022.
Since April 2020, 16 Allegheny County prisoners have died, a rate far exceeding the national average for similar-sized jails. No one knows how many of them could have been saved if the jail had provided better care, or Mr. Fitzgerald had acted sooner. But in entering into a contract with NCCHC, he is acknowledging the county can’t fix the problem without outside help. That is a significant and hopeful change from the complacency Mr. Fitzgerald has exhibited up to now.
A respected national accrediting agency that sets the standards for health care in jails and prisons is the right choice for conducting the investigation. An internal review would have no credibility. Warden Orlando Harper has lost the confidence of his employees and much of the public.
Aside from the jail’s disturbing number of fatalities, controversies and concerns include ongoing staff shortages, costly lawsuits, poor employee morale, improper housing policies, and a toxic culture of disrespect toward inmates and employees. The employees union for the jail has called for Mr. Harper’s resignation. During a public meeting, the mother of the second inmate to die this year asked whether Mr. Harper was running a jail or a cemetery.
In theory, the county’s Jail Oversight Board could investigate the deaths, but bad blood between board members and jail administrators would sabotage the effort. The jail would not cooperate with the Oversight Board, and political grandstanding, along with the usual bickering, would likely hinder any constructive efforts for reform.
The NCCHC should bring credibility and trust to the review, but the closed culture that Warden Harper has inculcated makes openness and transparency especially important. Mr. Fitzgerald should commit now to making the review’s findings public. With nearly 400 corrections officers and more than 1,500 inmates, the jail is a public agency paid for by Allegheny County taxpayers. It belongs to the people.
Nearly 10,000 people, mostly Allegheny County residents, enter and leave the jail every year. Most are pre-trial detainees — in other words, legally innocent — and often too poor to make bail. What happens to them affects everyone in the county.
More than 1,000 people a year die in U.S. jails. People often enter them in poor health, but many deaths are preventable. Federal courts have firmly established adequate health care as a constitutional right for prisoners, who are entirely dependent on their keepers for care. Wrongful death lawsuits can amount to millions of dollars.
Now, deaths in the Allegheny County Jail are reviewed by internal investigations that are open to bias, or by law enforcement officers focused on criminal liability. These investigations generally exclude negligence and preventive measures. Using physicians, as well as security, correctional policy and behavioral health experts, the NCCHC will conduct a broader, longer-term review of fatalities that should lead to changes in policies and practices.
Mr. Fitzgerald will need to take the lead in carrying out recommended reforms. Mr. Harper, who was appointed in 2012, has resisted changes and minimized the jail’s high number of fatalities by, erroneously, comparing them to annual admissions instead of average daily population. He has refused to release medical records to members of the Jail Oversight Board, who are responsible, under state law, for safeguarding the health and safety of prisoners and employees.
The county and NCCHC are still working out the details of the review, including the period it will cover, county spokeswoman Amie Downs said Thursday. The Jail Oversight Board should help determine the scope of the investigation. For the greater good, members of the Jail Oversight Board and county administrators ought to work together.
Ten years into his tenure, County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has realized overseeing the county jail is an important part of his job, and that all is not well at 950 Second Ave.
Many questions remain about how the county will handle the investigation and where it will lead. But Mr. Fitzgerald, in authorizing an independent review, has taken a critical step in resolving the festering problems and lingering questions concerning fatalities in the Allegheny County Jail.
First Published: August 20, 2022, 4:00 a.m.
