U.S. Sues Dallas County Over Jail Conditions

Finally, this has been going on for years!

The first time my son was incarcerated at Lou Sterrit his jaw was broken. Upon release days after the assault he sustained to his jaw, I took him to Medical City and they confirmed the break. Unfortunately when your jaw is broken it has to be addressed fairly quickly not a week later or something. So the only recourse one has is to re-brake the area, because it starts to heal so quickly. The outcome of this was a decision not to re-break and simply hope that the healing wouldn't be to misaligned, or as we were informed the usage would be potential painful, cause teeth grinding, headaches, etc,.

The process by which one attains medical care in the facility is the inmate submits what is known as a medical kite. This is supposed to travel from the guards into the system, ideally ending with the medical staff initiating care. However, the ideal is far from the reality. In the 5 day period after the assault my son filled out a kite everyday. He was released before he was able to be seen by the medical staff. This was in 2005.

Staph infections, and a recipe for disaster. In early January /February of this year my son cut his foot on a protruding piece of metal on the stair case in the day room. Within one day of this injury it became apparent that he had a staph infection the toe tripled in size and had the classic white ring of puss surrounding it. Long story short, 5 days later after daily requestes to each and every staff jailer on duty in his tank, as well as my repeated alert and request to the tower on the floor, the information desk, the people downstairs who all assured me he was in the system awaiting the backlog to clear for his care to begin. I decided to call the adult probation department in the county court building next store to lou sterrit, to make a plea for the predicament, they in turn connected me to the sargeant on duty who informed me that there was absolutely no record in the system of this incident nor any request for medical care. The Sargent assured me he would have the matter addressed. Which he did immediately, for the remaining days he was there until transfer to TDC - Huntsville, a daily visit to the nurse and the infection was able to heal.

What occurred to me at the time. Being aware of the on going complaints about the poor medical care, the law suits, the reports made by independent agencies which seemed to yield little or no change, was that in all the situations, with all these agencies, the one portion of the problem that they all failed to realize, was the apathetic behavior of the very staff, entrusted with the responsibility to humanely carry out the mandates given to them. This is in my opinion what is broken in our county jail. I believe that Lupe Valdez the Sheriff in charge is a good person, with good intentions, and to her credit she has worked very hard to try to get this place straightened out. I hope that her hard work yields results, in time I believe it will. She took on a mess, and probably the criticisms will out way the credits, but I think we should be grateful for the beginning of change she brought in.

Drug Convictions & Financial Aid Reform

A mad dash...to FAFSA application:

My son Erik was arrested on a drug possession charge in 2004. I remember the second thing that went through my mind on the morning of that fateful call was; there goes your future! Knowing that a drug conviction would make him in-eligible for financial aid, and this would seriously narrow his options, his future. In between the on going fight my husband Mike and I engaged in regarding Erik and who was to blame, why, and how to fix it, which it turns out = clank both of our heads together, while the children are in the corner lighting matches. The house still burns down, and you can think what ever you like about it. Something had been burning for a long time. Tightly encased in my conceptual reality, I couldn't see, feel, or know what was really happening and or how to fix it. Uncertainty would have been actually ok, but I didn't have that luxury, one thing was very certain. I knew that a question was being posed daily and that question was; will today be the day when his behavior finally catches up with him. The morning I received a collect call from the Dallas County Jail was the culmination of my fears and in that moment I felt as if a part of me died. Which in fact it did, the part of me that held out hope despite the fear and wisdom. having Erik was that together said, this boy and the crazy situations he creates and pursues can't possibly have a happy ending. The thoughts that circled within me alternated between hope and fear but they at least offset each other. However, on the day his fate took a turn and his behavior caught up with him, there was no thing that I could think of, that would offset reality. Hope has been my constant companion, I have reverted to through out all my struggles and hardships. It has always served me. There has been only one other time in my life, that hope was been unable to resque me from, when my father died. Hope and death share nothing, they exist on such opposing ground as you traverse the gap the other must be left behind. This gap was traversed. Apparently though hope can be reserected(sp), it appears the financial aid penalties are being reconsidered.

The laws that deny financial aid to individuals convicted of a drug offense are counter intuitive, we are not what we have done in the past, they are only parts of us, change occurs, people change, unless the circumstances that surround one prevent that...and this is preventative to have laws that forever bind us to our past mistakes. People learn from mistakes.

Here are the latest results of various attempts to overturn the laws which deny financial aid assistance to people who have been convicted of a drug offense.

I am grateful to humanity and these individuals are a fine example of the best of us as they fight to overturn laws that don't serve us. -el