Community members filled the Canaan Baptist Church in New Castle Monday night to voice their concerns about the way the Delaware’s Dept. of Corrections operates state prisons.
A long line of former inmates – as well as the parents and friends of current inmates – shared accounts of poor treatment and lack of services inside the state’s correctional facilities, particularly James T. Vaughn Correctional Center.
“I don’t even want to say they treat them like animals because animals are treated better than that," said Donna Oullette, the mother of a 32-year-old Vaughn inmate. "They’re treated like you step in a pile of cow manure and wipe it off their shoe."
Oullette says her son has been in and out of jail since he was 15, and never received intensive mental health services there for trauma he experienced as a child.
She added her son had good rapport with one of Vaughn’s counselors – but she quit last month.
Ken Abraham – who served time in James T. Vaughn Correctional Center from 2007 – 2012 - said while there, he participated in a drug treatment program called CREST. He said it looked good on paper, but didn't work well.
“The difference between what actually goes on and the program as it’s supposed to be makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the sidewalk," Abraham said. "It’s a joke, none of the counselors worked from the program, the guys in there – they never looked at any of the materials.”
Abraham adds that since the program allowed inmates to “test out” – they’d cram the night before, and then forget everything.
Multiple former inmates say the alcohol treatment program Greentree had been closed down, and several other programs had been pulled – with more pressure put on inmates to run existing programs themselves.
Retired state correctional officer Janice Hubbard says the quality of correctional officer training has declined over the last 20 years.
Hubbard also worries about some of the young officers being hired– and their ability to communicate respectfully with other staff and inmates.
“Most of our correctional staff are coming from bad homes, or they are victims of abuse themselves, they’ve got trauma written all over them, they come in and they give their trauma to the prisoners, and that’s what we have," Hubbard said.
Hubbard adds the only mental health training correctional officers receive is on interpersonal communications, and that’s inadequate.
She’s calling for trauma-based education for both inmates, and staff – and also wants officials to take a hard look at the department’s current leadership.
Carol Holt is a healthcare consultant who worked with DOC in the late 1980s. She said at that time, the department was accredited by the National Commission on Health Care Standards (NCCHC). Holt said that meant that 85% of correctional officers - at that time - had to undergo at least one full day of mental health training.
A media inquiry to DOC about its programs for inmates and training for officers wasn't returned Monday.
ACLU of Delaware Executive Director Kathleen MacRae stressed that training is just one part of a larger problem: she said more needed to be done to reduce the prison population – with all First State corrections facilities over capacity - that's not only a safety hazard to inmates and staff but is also eating up funding that could instead be used to provide more robust programming to inmates.
She said the numerous stories of abuse and inequity shared by inmates and their family members Monday further illustrate that need.
“These stories are real, they’re not being made up," MacRae said. "This is not fantasy, this is reality. And as everyone was saying today, these are real people who deserve respect. They have constitutional rights even though they’re in prison.”
She says the ACLU of Delaware is collecting these stories - along with ones sent to their office.
MacRae added Delaware - per capita - incarcerates individuals at three times the rate of Virginia – and near double the rate of states like New York and New Jersey.
