Still out of compliance

The specialist appointed to do Marlin Gusman's job for him has failed.

Less than two weeks after a damning report from federal monitors called the New Orleans jail “critically unsafe,” the lockup’s court-appointed administrator has resigned.

U.S. District Judge Lance Africk said Monday he had accepted the resignation of Gary Maynard, who has run the jail’s day-to-day operations as compliance director since October 2016. Africk said he has appointed Darnley R. Hodge, who currently serves as a jail monitor, as acting director effective Feb. 19.

Next man up, right?  Can't wait for Gusman (who has been largely sidelined during this period) to launch his, "See? This really is a hard job" reelection campaign.

Critically unsafe

That's bad, right? It sounds bad.

With an inmate death rate four times the national average, the New Orleans jail is “critically unsafe” and staffing is “critically inadequate," according to a withering report released Thursday by federal monitors.

The report finds that conditions have actually improved “marginally” since the last report from the court-appointed watchdogs 10 months ago. Yet page after page of the lengthy report details how monitors found entire units left unguarded on unannounced visits and discovered during reviews of medical logs that hundreds of alarming incidents had gone unreported.

Inmates on mental health watch manage to ingest pills or attempt suicide by hanging, and fights often erupt as guards leave their posts for lunch, the report found. Meanwhile, 44 percent of jail employees were fired or quit their jobs in 2017.

The jail administration led by Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman and compliance director Gary Maynard is living in a state of denial or ignorance, the report finds.

Yeah that's bad. What's remarkable about the state of the jail four years into a federally directed reform program and a over a year into the Maynard experiment is that some basic sounding things aren't getting done. For example, this sounds like someone just needs to make a spreadsheet at least. 

The Sheriff’s Office files reports on suicides, riots and fights, yet it has failed to analyze them in a systemic way that might prevent future incidents. The jail has not conducted an annual review of jail guards’ use of force that is required by the consent judgment.

Although recent Sheriff’s Office reports have minimized the number of inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff attacks, the report says that such incidents remain rampant, occurring at a rate that indicates “an unacceptable and dangerous environment” in the jail.

The monitor's report also lists unreported or mishandled incidents of violence or contraband, inadequate mental health services, as well as insufficient and inadequate staffing in general. You can see where this is going.  

Even after an inmate’s hanging death in May, and the high-profile hanging death of a 15-year-old inmate in 2016, the jail’s precautions against self-harm are weak. Guards have not been tested on suicide prevention training, a tool to cut down nooses was missing in five of six control pods, and nurses were not keeping an eye on inmates on suicide watch during a recent tour, the report said.

Of course there are larger underlying systemic problems at work here besides just proper prison administration.   We arrest too many people. We criminalize too many behaviors. We're leaving more and more people behind in general and shoving them into our crappy jail.  But that's all beyond the scope of the federal monitors' purview.  What they are able to tell us, though, is you don't want to go to jail in New Orleans. It's not a pleasant place to be even on the days when there is potable water.

Substitute Sheriff

Looks like there's a new sheriff in town. Sort of, anyway.  Gusman picked his court ordered "compliance director" today; i.e. the guy who will supposedly do most of his job for him until the consent decree is lifted.

Gary D. Maynard, 73, essentially will become a surrogate for Sheriff Marlin Gusman, assuming operational control of the Orleans Justice Center as he seeks to implement a series of court-ordered reforms that have languished for three years. He will be known formally as the jail's "independent compliance director."

The sheriff, announcing the appointment at a news conference Thursday, touted Maynard's four decades of corrections experience and called him "a welcome addition to our team."

At no point during the press conference did anyone in attendance mutter the word, "Awwwwkwaarrd" under his or her breath.

For his part, Maynard says he's looking forward to the "big challenge." 

He also is no stranger to controversy, having served at the helm of the Maryland prison system at a time when more than a dozen guards were indicted for misconduct at the notorious Baltimore City Detention Center on racketeering and drug charges.

A federal investigation revealed that a group of corrupt corrections officers aided an inmate gang in smuggling drugs and cellphones into the lockup.

Maynard resigned his position in December 2013 to join the Criminal Justice Institute, a nonprofit organization that provides consultation to prisons and jails.

"I’ve been through some pretty bad situations and some riots and hostage situations," Maynard said. "I’ve always been drawn toward challenges. That’s what drew me down here. I think this is going to be a big challenge."

Eh.. probably not really, though. Sounds more like a dude who has already paid his "challenge" dues and is looking for one more gig from which to draw a pension before he retires all the way.  But who knows? When I'm 73 I'm sure I'll take up base jumping or something.

For Gusman's part, well, as ever it is all about budget leverage. 

Gusman said Thursday that Maynard also will serve as a "conduit to gain access to financial and operational resources that the Sheriff's Office has been denied for years."

Maynard's responsibilities will include crafting a jail budget that Gusman has said must include pay raises for his deputies, long a key point of dispute between the Sheriff's Office and the Landrieu administration in their fight over jail funding.

"Through our collective work," Gusman said, "we will achieve clarity on the budget needed to operate the Orleans Justice Center and meet the other items outlined in the consent decree."

Anyway so welcome Substitute Sheriff Money Conduit, I guess.  Good luck.