Mommy said a stork brought me.
What disturbs me about this story more than the contraception issue is that the rape investigation appears to have been halted, in order to lock this woman up for her outstanding warrant. I don’t get that at all…doesn’t it seem to be more important to find the location of the possible crime committed against her, in order to gather any potential evidence? Couldn’t locking her up in jail have waited a few hours while they did what they were supposed to do regarding investigating the rape?
Don’t you think they probably should have found out? What the hell kind of detectives were these? “Yeah, you reported a rape, we took you to a rape crisis center. Now, all of a sudden, you’re trying to claim that mysterious little pill you want to take is Plan B? Yeah, right, lock her up.” There is no way that this can be justified.
It wouldn’t matter** if [/B]policy forbids her from bringing in outside drugs. The prescribing doctor her/himself could have vouched* for it, but if policy forbids her from taking it, there’s nothing that can be done until the policy is changed. Yeah, it seems reasonable to outsiders that policy should just be ignored in these kinds of cases, but people working in corrections learn very early that you ignore policy to your peril. The person who allowed it most likely would have been fired. You can’t have employees deciding on their own which rules they will follow-- not in an environment where people’s lives are at stake.
New officers are taught that they must obey policy even if it seems to make no sense to them. I could tell you a hundred stories of times when officers decided to ignore little policies for what they felt was a legitimate reason and it ended up compromising security and being a massive problem.
As I said, policy is always in flux. Many times, officers have approached my husband and other higher-ups with suggestions or complaints about how something was not working. Their concerns are not ignored, however, sometimes it is determined that the policy is a good one despite a rare problem. Other times, policy is re-written from the ground up to address issues which have arisen.
- Let’s also not forget about privacy issues. The doctor may be forbidden from revealing whether they prescribed the drug unless the patient agrees to forgo confidentiality. There may need to be forms signed and whatnot. (I don’t know. Medical privacy is something I’m not overly familiar with.)
If policy forbids a person from taking medication, then I have no faith in the people who are writing policy – and you shouldn’t either. It’s beyond stupid and is probably illegal, policy or not. Why are you defending something that is so blatantly idiotic? They didn’t just create the penal code last week! You don’t think this issue has come up thousands of times over the years? I’d like to see a cite on a policy that forbids a jailed suspect from taking medication. I’d also like to see how the issue is handled when someone comes in and says they need to take their meds.
Do you have a cite for this? I didn’t see this question answered in that GD thread.
True that the specific question about Ritalin was not asked, but distinctions were made between medical judgments and moral objections, which I think is what DianaG’s question was getting at.
More to the point, the reason I was discussing the pharmacist issue with Kalhoun in this thread was to express my opinion that the position of the pharmacist and the position of the jail guard are not the same thing, which is relevant to this thread.
Any further discussion about what I or anyone thinks about what the obligations of the pharmacist are is really much more relevant to the other thread, and represents a hijacking of this thread. If I answer the specific question about Ritalin, it would surely lead to a multiple-post if not multiple-page hijacking of this thread, which would no doubt cover much of the territory of the GD thread…so I didn’t see the need to go down that path here.
Another glowing example of intelligence in law enforcement:
http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/news/10889747/detail.html
What the fuck is wrong with these assholes?
Saoirse, I acknowledged that my question was a bit of a hijack and possibly could have been better suited for the other thread, as well. In retrospect, I think I was wrong to post it here, though there is a bit of an overlap. Maybe we should revive the other one.
You know what? I until this very day never had a problem with your “my husband was Deputy Warden and that’s why I have to weigh in authoritatively in every corrections-related thread” until this very minute. In fact, I defending you in the Pit thread in which you were attacked for doing just this. But you are speaking with great authority about an area where your knowledge appears to be at best second hand. Worse, you are making overly broad statements (so overly broad as to be in many cases incorrect), misstating the law, and failing to take into account the fact that (a) this is a jail, not a prison and (b) the woman is a pre-trial detainee, not a convicted prisoner.
You are actually arguing against the exercise of independent judgment, even to the extent of asking for help or calling your supervisor, which is frankly an incredibly stupid point of view in any profession, in every profession. You would allow a person to choke to death in anyphalactic shock rather than hit him with an epi pen because, hey! Maybe he’s not choking! Maybe he’s seizing! And maybe I don’t know the difference! Again, the legal standard to be met is deliberate indifference, so if you TRY, you’re probably okay. If you stand there and DO NOTHING, you almost certainly are not. If you GIVE THE PERSON THE MEDS (ONE DOSE) you are probably okay, but if you WITHHOLD THEM, you may not be. If they needed them, and you knew they needed them, and you withheld them, you are arguably deliberately indifferent to their serious medical needs. And that is not a mere negligece action, my friend, that is a federal lawsuit for violationg the inmate’s Constitutional rights.
So I am not going to spend any more time doing a line-by-line refutation of your defense of abstract prison policy based on your incomplete knowledge of what occurs and should occur in an area that is not your field. I will say that you are defending the sort of slavish and brainless performance that I spend a great deal of time trying to train out of people. Clearly there is much work left to be done.
Well, you appear to be the expert in this area, so why don’t you research that and let us all know.
(Psst! Why is Jodi whispering? I can’t hear her!)
She’s speechless.
WTF? Damn hampsters!
You know what? I until this very day never had a problem with your “my husband was Deputy Warden and that’s why I have to weigh in authoritatively in every corrections-related thread” until this very minute. In fact, I defended you in the Pit thread in which you were attacked for doing just this. But you are speaking with great authority about an area where your knowledge appears to be at best second hand. Worse, you are making overly broad statements (so overly broad as to be in many cases incorrect), misstating the law, and failing to take into account the fact that (a) this is a jail, not a prison and (b) the woman is a pre-trial detainee, not a convicted prisoner.
You are actually arguing against the exercise of independent judgment, even to the extent of asking for help or calling your supervisor, which is frankly an incredibly stupid point of view in any profession, in every profession. You would allow a person to choke to death in anyphalactic shock rather than hit him with an epi pen because, hey! Maybe he’s not choking! Maybe he’s seizing! And maybe I don’t know the difference! Again, the legal standard to be met is deliberate indifference, so if you try, you’re probably okay. If you stand there and do nothing, you almost certainly are not. If you give the person the meds (one dose), you are probably okay, but if you withhold them and something bad happens, you almost certainly are not. If they needed them, and you knew they needed them, and you withheld them, you are arguably deliberately indifferent to their serious medical needs. And that is not a mere negligence action, my friend, that is a federal lawsuit for violating the inmate’s Constitutional rights.
So I am not going to spend any more time doing a line-by-line refutation of your defense of abstract prison policy based on your incomplete knowledge of what occurs and should occur in an area that is not your field. I will say that you are defending the sort of slavish and brainless performance that I spend a great deal of time trying to train out of people. Clearly there is much work left to be done.
Well, you appear to be the expert in this area, so why don’t you research that and let us all know.
A low talker.
I have explained the reasons why such policies exist, and they are often sound ones, regardless of whether you agree or not. Inmates are wards of the states and thus the detention facility is responsible for them.
Stupid is debatable, legal really isn’t. Policies are challenged again and again in court and most facilities have a legal department which vets policy to make sure that it is within legal guidelines. A policy which violated inmate’s legal rights wouldn’t stand for long.
I’m trying to explain what sort of policies exist at some facilities and why. Sometimes, I personally disagree with them, but that’s not what is at issue. The issues is that apparently, some policy exists at this facility which forbids the inmates from having drugs they brought in from the outside and he drug she needed was not on the approved list. I’m trying to explain why this might be.
Here is an example of one jail’s policy:
(Bolding and underlining in original.)
Here is a page which desribes some general jail guidelines on medications:
Yes, I am making broad statements. That is because policy varies so widely, it is almost impossible to make a definitive statement about that jail without actually reading their policy manual. What I am doing is giving examples of policies I have seen and trying to explain why they exist.
I have said (about five times by my count) that policies vary but correctional facilities all face similar issues and thus many of their policies have a similar basis. From that standpoint, I am trying to explain why they* might* exist at this particular facility.
Apparently, you missed the part where I said the first thing this employee probably did was to call her supervisor, who in turn, called their supervisor and so forth. All of them had their hands tied by policy and none of them had the authority to decide to ignore it without facing sanctions. I fully support the notion of bringing these things to the attention of the appropriate people, however, I understand that sometimes they cannot take immediate action to change things.
And, yes, you’re right, that I am arguing against independant judgement in some respects. Policy exists for a reason and you can’t trust that people will always make the right decisions. In another setting, this wouldn’t necessarily be that big of a deal but in a correctional facility, you’re dealing with* lives.* No, I don’t want an officer making decisions of whether someone needs a medication or not. No, I don’t want to set the officer up for allegations of racism or discrimination. It’s in the officer’s best interest that they don’t have discretion because it protects them from the consequences. Instead, they should refer the situation to the appropriate authorites who will make the decision.
Here is an example of a jail’s medical emergency policy. Staff may administer first aid, but must call for medical help. I am not aware whether administering an epi pen is covered under this jails first aid policy, but it’s important to note that the epi pen can cause serious complications in people with heart disease and it’s probably better to wait for the medical staff to arrive.
They’re not “doing nothing” if they’ve called for assistance.
That’s assuming a hell of a lot. It’s assuming that the staff, who may have never seen this inmate before, knows that the person has allergies and that they have an epi pen handy. It also assumes that they’re trained in the use of it and that they recognized the symptoms of an allerigic reaction and diagnosed it correctly.
I hope no one thinks that I am being holier-than-thou about hijacking threads…I am just as guilty as anyone in that regard. It’s just that in this case, I spent several days going over all the possible nuances in the pharmacist thread, and really can’t face the idea of covering such similar territory all over again. And as Kalhoun says, there seems to be no point in hijacking this thread when there is a perfectly good existing thread where that discussion could move to, if people are interested in the subject.
Lissa, the squib you cut from your site left out the important part:
This woman had no timely review of her health concerns and medication, or if she did, they did not take her best interest into consideration. There is no indication that what transpired was appropriate based on a doctor’s “training and experience.”
“Timely” is something that varies a bit as well. Some jails have an immediate medical review on admission and some schedule a later time. The point of this is that her medical situation was not “urgent” in the sense of life-threatening, so it could be that policy dictated that persons without an emergency would be seen by the doctor within a few days of admittance. Again, it’s all a matter of policy. Many people’s opinion would be that emercency contraception is, well, an emergency, but the doctor may be swamped with other inmates more serious complaints.
But this is all imaterial if the jail had a policy of not allowing inmates to take their own medications and Plan B was not a part of their formulary. At that point, there would be nothing that they could do.
Timely may very well vary from case to case, which is precisely the point. A timely response would be one that would render “adequate care.” Their response was inadequate and the repercussions could indeed be life-threatening even if they don’t believe that. This isn’t rocket science. If it’s a situation they’ve never seen before, *they’re seeing it now * and need to use common sense coupled with a genuine desire to do the right thing. If they don’t get that, they should get a less people-oriented job.
How about thinking of it in terms of not messing around with natural processes having to do with fertility? Does that make it more consistent, and less stupid?