Jail still won’t tell inmate’s family about his injuries

prisoners. “They don’t put you in the hospital for nothing.”

Keeping family members informed of an inmate’s medical condition should be routine, said Witold “Vic” Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

“It is difficult to conceive of a legitimate reason for the jail not to notify family if an inmate has sustained a serious injury or is hospitalized,” he said. “As a matter of simple human decency, notification should occur routinely.”

State standards say county jails should have a written policy to provide “prompt notification” of an inmate’s emergency contact in the event of a death, serious illness or serious injury — but the standards are not mandatory and do not define what qualifies as a serious injury.

Each county jail sets its own policy, Mr. Love said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections’ policy calls for prison officials to contact an inmate’s next of kin in the event of a serious injury, illness or death through both a phone call and a letter. The policy says officials should give the inmate’s name, circumstances of the incident, the name, location and phone number of the treatment center, name of the inmate’s physician and the visiting procedures of the treatment center.

At a monthly Jail Oversight Board meeting Thursday, inmate advocate Marion Damick brought up Mr. Givens’ case and said notifying inmates' families about medical issues has been a persistent problem in the Allegheny County Jail.

Following the meeting, Warden Orlando Harper said, “Our policy is that we notify family members when there is a life-threatening injury. We do not want to risk any of our correctional officers’ and sheriff’s deputies’ safety, so that's our policy.”

Board president Judge David Cashman said the jail can’t notify families in every medical instance.

“Just because somebody goes to have a tooth extracted doesn't mean that’s a medical emergency,” he said. “But if there is a serious medical issue, the family should be notified so they can be part of the healing process for that individual.”

In Mr. Givens’ case, he said, “They should have been notified.”

Statewide, families of inmates often struggle to learn official details about inmates’ medical conditions, said Claire Shubik-Richards, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a 230-year-old nonprofit that advocates for humane treatment of inmates.

“I can’t tell you the number of calls we get here with people saying, ‘I heard through the grapevine that my son broke his leg,’” she said.

Officials’ concern that giving out the location and timing of an inmate’s hospital visit could present a security threat by alerting outsiders of an inmate’s status is valid, she said. But officials ought to be able to give out general information to family members about an inmate’s condition without revealing details that compromise security, she said.

“More conscientious facilities will alert a family and reassure them,” she said. “Not providing any information just breeds concern, worry and distrust.”

Refusing to tell the family that an incident occurred also limits actions an inmate can take to independently document the injuries or get an attorney involved, Mr. Walczak said.

“This makes me wonder whether the jail is trying to prevent the injured or ill prisoner from communicating with people on the outside to suppress information that may be potentially embarrassing to the jail or that may enhance their legal liability,” he said. “For instance, if guards beat someone up, there will not be a witness to document and photograph the injuries until they have healed.”

Shelly Bradbury: 412-2631999, sbradbury@post-gazette.com or follow on Twitter @ShellyBradbury. Staff reporter Kate Giammarise contributed.