California Prison System Carried Out Eugenics Program (guess the year!)

[Eric P]

http://cironline.org/reports/female-inmates-sterilized-california-prisons-without-approval-4917

Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

holy
fucking
shit

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.

From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.

The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.

Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.

Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison’s infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not right,’ ” Nguyen, 28, said. “Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore?”

One former Valley State inmate who gave birth to a son in October 2006 said the institution’s OB-GYN, Dr. James Heinrich, repeatedly pressured her to agree to a tubal ligation.

“As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it,” said Christina Cordero, 34, who spent two years in prison for auto theft. “He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn’t do it.”

Cordero, released in 2008 and now living in Upland, Calif., agreed, but she says, “today, I wish I would have never had it done.”

The allegations echo those made nearly a half-century ago, when forced sterilizations of prisoners, the mentally ill and the poor were commonplace in California. State lawmakers officially banned such practices in 1979.

During an interview with CIR, Heinrich said he provided an important service to poor women who faced health risks in future pregnancies because of past cesarean sections. The 69-year-old Bay Area physician denied pressuring anyone and expressed surprise that local contract doctors had charged for the surgeries. He described the $147,460 total as minimal. 

“Over a 10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money,” Heinrich said, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”

The top medical manager at Valley State Prison from 2005 to 2008 characterized the surgeries as an empowerment issue for female inmates, providing them the same options as women on the outside. Daun Martin, a licensed psychologist, also claimed that some pregnant women, particularly those on drugs or who were homeless, would commit crimes so they could return to prison for better health care.

“Do I criticize those women for manipulating the system because they’re pregnant? Absolutely not,” Martin, 73, said. “But I don’t think it should happen. And I’d like to find ways to decrease that.”

Martin denied approving the surgeries, but at least 60 tubal ligations were done at Valley State while Martin was in charge, according to the state contracts database.

Martin’s counterpart at the California Institution for Women, Dr. Jacqueline Long, declined to discuss why inmates received unauthorized tubal ligations under her watch. But the Corona prison’s former compliance officer, William Kelsey, said there was disagreement among staff members over the procedure.

During one meeting in late 2005, a few correctional officers differed with Long’s medical team over adding tubal ligations to a local hospital’s contract, Kelsey, 57, said. The officers viewed the surgeries as nonessential medical care and questioned whether the state should pay.

“They were just fed up,” Kelsey said. “They didn’t think criminals and inmates had a right to the care we were providing them and they let their personal opinions be heard.”

The service was included, however, and Kelsey said the grumbling subsided.

Federal and state laws ban inmate sterilizations if federal funds are used, reflecting concerns that prisoners might feel pressured to comply. California used state funds instead, but since 1994, the procedure has required approval from top medical officials in Sacramento on a case-by-case basis.

Yet no tubal ligation requests have come before the health care committee responsible for approving such restricted surgeries, said Dr. Ricki Barnett, who tracks medical services and costs for the California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp. Barnett, 65, has led the Health Care Review Committee since joining the prison receiver’s office in 2008.

“When we heard about the tubal ligations, it made us all feel slightly queasy,” Barnett said. “It wasn’t so much that people were conspiratorial or coercive or sloppy. It concerns me that people never took a step back to project what they would feel if they were in the inmate’s shoes and what the inmate’s future might hold should they do this.”

Jeffrey Callison, spokesman for the state corrections department, said the department couldn’t comment because it no longer has access to inmate medical files.

“All medical care for inmates, and all medical files, past and present, are under the control of the Receiver’s Office,” Callison wrote in an email.

The receiver has overseen medical care in all 33 of the state’s prisons since 2006, when U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of the Northern District of California ruled that the system’s health care was so poor that it violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The receiver’s office was aware that sterilizations were happening, records show.

In September 2008, the prisoner rights group Justice Now received a written response to questions about the treatment of pregnant inmates from Tim Rougeux, then the receiver’s chief operating officer. The letter acknowledged that the two prisons offered sterilization surgery to women.

But nothing changed until 2010, after the Oakland-based organization filed a public records request and complained to the office of state Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale. Liu was the chairwoman of the Select Committee on Women and Children in the Criminal Justice System.

Prompted by a phone call from Liu’s staff, Barnett said the receiver’s top medical officer asked her to research the matter. After analyzing medical and cost records, Barnett met in 2010 with officials at both women’s prisons and contract health professionals affiliated with nearby hospitals.

During those meetings, Barnett told them to halt inmate sterilizations. In response, she said, she got an earful.

The 16-year-old restriction on tubal ligations seemed to be news to prison health administrators, doctors, nurses and the contracting physicians, Barnett recalled. And, she said, none of the doctors thought they needed permission to perform the surgery on inmates.

“Everybody was operating on the fact that this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do,” she said.

the article goes on but you get the general idea.

[treythemovie]

You don't see any men getting sterilized 

[brob]

The American prison system continues to surprise me.

[Positive Touch]

its ok guys; they woulda been drains on society and the docs were smart guys who knew that this would be the best outcome possible. also if the women didnt want it they shouldnt have gone to jail.

[pilonv1]

I would have guessed 2013

[Great Rumbler]

Our prison system works about as well as our education system [hint: not very well].

[ToxicAdam]

It's pretty common for doctors to offer getting your tubes tied after you give birth. It's more cost effective and efficient. Especially since so many births happen via C-section nowadays.

One former Valley State inmate who gave birth to a son in October 2006 said the institution’s OB-GYN, Dr. James Heinrich, repeatedly pressured her to agree to a tubal ligation.

“As soon as he found out that I had five kids (and was 34), he suggested that I look into getting it done"

I mean seriously, we are going to get up in arms over this? An OB-Gyn would be irrepsonsible if he didn't give her this advice. Especially since the state is going to pay for the procedure (and she's probably dirt poor).

Smells more like advocates and lawyers looking for a payday.

[Eel O'Brian]

“Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore?”

I dunno, man, after watching a Lockdown marathon or two, I am halfway leaning towards "...okay?"

[Joe Molotov]

Whatever, Adolf.

Dr. James HEINRICH

 

[Rufus]

Whatever, Adolf.

Dr. James HEINRICH

 

[Mandark]

Kind of sloppy reporting.  How are we meant to judge whether this was good policy without knowing the inmates' IQ scores?

[Himu]

is it bad my guess of the year was 2012 or 2013

[Raban]

[Momo]

“As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it,” said Christina Cordero, 34, who spent two years in prison for auto theft. “He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn’t do it.”

look at this shining beacon of motherhood.

[Mandark]

I dunno.  At this point, I think the smart play is letting it slide.  The first instinct during a pile-on is always going to be to dig in and defend your position, but since your initial comments seemed more of an intuitive stab at the issue than anything, would it really be worth becoming The Eugenics Guy over this?  You'd be spending a bunch of time arguing for a belief that isn't terribly central to your worldview, with very little hope of convincing anyone, all because you felt some internet potshots in your direction were unfair.

Think of the opportunity cost, yo.

[Mandark]

I'll just say that (especially as a vehement opponent of the drug war) you should try to remember the gap between benign, paternalist theory and the often violent, discriminatory reality of enforcement.

[Positive Touch]

This is a lot different from what I was talking about, although there are plenty of crimes that do warrant sterilization.

Kinda wish I could carry on that debate from the Relationships thread over to this one, since that thread is now about Bebpo getting fucked over and girls canceling on Malek again. I was away from a computer for the last 3 days and would have really liked to reply to some of the bullshit P-Touch and others were throwing out.

do it, unless youre not man enough

[chronovore]

I was surprised, reading the featured text, that I was not utterly appalled by the content.

I mean, and I will paraphrase here, "I felt like they were telling me that I was a bad mom, while I was in jail for 2 years, away from my five children, and it is wrong for them to tell me I can't have more."  IS IT?! Is it wrong? It doesn't seem like the choices you've made this far have been particularly responsible.

That doesn't give anyone the right to perform surgery against the inmates' will, sure. But isn't the implication that the doctors counseled the patient, and the patient agreed to the procedure? If the inmates now REGRET their decision to sterilize, isn't it just one more thing, likely on a long list of things, on which they look back with regret?

[headwalk]

Good point.

I do think it's possible that at some point in the not-so-distant future, we're going to have to stop thinking of biological reproduction as an inalienable human right. It surprises me how strongly people cling to this. I guess at the most basic level I see absolutely nothing wrong with the state telling people "You don't get to reproduce any more," and it's surprising how vehemently opposed to this idea many people are even with 7 billion humans on the planet.

i too want my star trek future, but relative distinguished mentally-challenged fellows like us will never be the ones to carve it out. leave it to autistic wizards and eat your TV dinner.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

If people want to start talking about large scale population planning via eugenics, they should just kill themselves to get the ball rolling.

Same goes for hardcore environmentalists.  Think of all the gallons of water that won't be used to sustain their worthless lives.  It shows everyone just how dedicated you are to the cause

[Positive Touch]

i mean, if a 160 iq dude isnt smart enough to go read up on the many hundreds of years people have tried to do "social engineering" like this to disastrous and horrific results, then how can we trust him with our future?

[Madrun Badrun]

Don't know what you are talking about Touch, social engineering almost always works, as long as you aren't a bleeding-heart liberal.

[Barry Egan]

China's one child policy has prevented over 400 million births: more than the population of the United States. They do have the female shortage due to a failure to provide incentives to have female babies that would counteract the natural desire for a son, but it seems like a relatively minor problem compared to the massively higher levels of poverty and hunger that 400 million additional people would inflict, plus it's a bug that you can iron out in the 2.0 version.

Social engineering can work, and people who advocate it don't need to kill themselves to make a point.

the real problem with your argument is that we already know too much about your self-identification as a Very Smart Person to take anything you have to say about dumb people seriously.  You've turned an abstract group of people in to scapegoats who should be punished for complex political problems, and it just so happens to be a group you could never fathom being a part of.  We get it, you're in no danger of being sent to summer school. Do people literally have to lose their manhood for your egos sake?  Should the program be called the Glen Shinobi Elektra Complex Initiative?  It's just so transparent.

[Barry Egan]

arent you a history major?  smh.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

arent you a history major?  smh.

I thought it was Humanities

[Positive Touch]

TL;DR: Godwin. Amirite, P-Touch, or are you going to bring something original to the table?

nah there's a hell of a lot more than nazi experements to point to.  i dont agree with you at all, but i am admittedly trying to rustle your jimmies

seriously tho, barry is 100% spot-on. this shit doesnt work because the plans are designed and carried out by people who think they are Very Smart and everyone else is Very Stupid and thus in need of brutal paternalism. its not a way to make a better society, its a way to punish people that you dont like.

and it should go without saying, but the Very Smart people are of course Very Stupid people because they judge and control instead of actually helping

[Barry Egan]

arent you a history major?  smh.

Please no more Godwins. Jesus Christ, this debate can never go more than a page on any forum without this crap. That or accusations of racism.

how was that a godwin   

[Positive Touch]

Please no more Godwins. Jesus Christ, this debate can never go more than a page on any forum without this crap. That or accusations of racism.

arent you a history major?  smh.

jesus christ did you actually learn anything in school

[Positive Touch]

also "eliminating human suffering through eugenics" is DEFINITELY going on my list of "stupidest things ive ever heard, anywhere"

[Great Rumbler]

Some people in this thread obviously never watched Gattaca.

[Shadow Mod]

I realize these people are already in prison but the best birth control is basically raising people's living standards and education. When you have options to do a bunch of shit other than rear kids, you tend to put that shit on the back burner. And if you do and want kids anyway, well that's your choice still but it will be more informed and supported.

[chronovore]

I realize these people are already in prison but the best birth control is basically raising people's living standards and education. When you have options to do a bunch of shit other than rear kids, you tend to put that shit on the back burner. And if you do and want kids anyway, well that's your choice still but it will be more informed and supported.

I'd also like to see curricula included in Home Economics about how credit cards work. We learned how to balance checkbooks, but probably the best new piece of simple math to add there would be how 18%+ interest rates on a maxed credit card undermine one's attempt to be independent.

[chronovore]

Awesome-O, would you agree to be sterilized for the good of the human race?  Your mental disorder clearly marks you as potentially defective stock.  Serious question, by the way.

Yeah, I brought up this topic in the other thread, too. Curious minds want to know!

[Barry Egan]

my point was going to be that as a history major you've seen a broad range of contexts in which governments disinfranchise an Other as a scapegoat in order to gain political capital.  there would be no reason to limit yourself to one nation in Europe.

[Phoenix Dark]

Pretty sure your shitty views on this and general uppity behavior already render you sterilized   - in the eyes of women.

[Positive Touch]

no, because as already been said in this thread, you cant magically implement a program that wont have people suffering when we know damn well that every time in the past this has been implemented it has caused plenty of suffering. seriously stfu with the "please guys be nice" when you advocate for a program that is commonly used for genocide (and not just in germany - look it up!)

and people with MR have kids without it, dur, so sterilizing them accomplishes nothing.

[Positive Touch]

I honestly haven't been taking you seriously, P-Touch, because there's no substance to any of your arguments. But you've done a hell of a baiting job. I should have let it go three days ago.

just according to keikaku

[naff]

Not really, PD. Just set up another date for this week.

Can you guys at least try to consider that someone could be compassionate, generous, altruistic, and genuinely concerned with wanting to reduce suffering in this world, and still believe that it might be good to limit reproductive rights in certain scenarios? Just bounce that around in your head a little bit. All I'm asking.

I'm more interested in what way it would be so beneficial to reduce human reproduction? "Human suffering" is so vague, and why would population control help with this? I can only imagine this would make most people pretty unhappy, even if they didn't want kids it's a pretty horrible rule to be forced to comply with, and there's little basis for it. Hint; it's not poor people with lots of kids that are draining the world's resources. Anyway, birth control is super effective as you said earlier, but that's where I believe it should start and end concerning peoples reproduction.

[Shadow Mod]

I realize these people are already in prison but the best birth control is basically raising people's living standards and education.

You realize that this is a very slow process, right? There's no reason why contraception shouldn't be freely available everywhere though; the ROI is insane

There are plenty of reasons like religion. And a bunch of people not supporting feminism nearly as much as they should.

[Positive Touch]

just extremely naive is all

[brob]

the better the standard of living is in a given area people will have fewer children and wait longer to have them. I have a hard time seeing how it works in reverse, particularly through enforcement.

[Rufus]

Particularly in regions where children are expected to provide care for their elderly parents.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I'm glad I stayed out of this thread, but now

I'm all for sterilizing sex offenders by the way.

[Rufus]

Why? It's not like it keeps them from succumbing to their urges, even if you try to take their sex drive entirely. They're still going to hurt people.

[chronovore]

I'm glad I stayed out of this thread, but now

I'm all for sterilizing sex offenders by the way.

I'm for castration, and replacing their boy parts with a brass faucet.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Actually yeah, castration is better. But sterilisation would at least stop victims from getting pregnant.

And why? Just cause they wont get off on it so much.

Also hormone therapy.

[Rufus]

I don't know how effective it is, but calls for (chemical) castration always seem more about revenge instead of justice.

[Cerveza mas fina]

So?

Justice is just a fabricated concept made up by men in suits.

Is 3 years in prison "justice" for raping a person? A 100 euro fine for crossing the street on red? Who decides whats justice?

Revenge is real justice.

[Eel O'Brian]

All I know is I saw this one dude bragging about how many dudes he'd prison raped, and saying stuff like "if I want that ass, I take it," and while I did bust out laughing because I am an asshole I also thought "hahaha, that guy needs his dick and balls removed."

[Eric P]

Revenge is real justice.

going HAMmurabi

[Rufus]

All I know is I saw this one dude bragging about how many dudes he'd prison raped, and saying stuff like "if I want that ass, I take it," and while I did bust out laughing because I am an asshole I also thought "hahaha, that guy needs his dick and balls removed."

Thing is, with people like that, you'd have to remove their arms, because they'll just use whatever else is availible if you take their dick. That stuff always struck me as going beyond sexual violence and into plain old sadism.

[Eel O'Brian]

pretty sure once word got around the joint you had your dick and balls removed you would cease to be a threatening presence

[brob]

The american prison system would probably do better to have a severe overhaul entirely rather than punish people for acting like dogs when they live in kennels. An institution where rape and violence is expected and accepted doesn't foster ex-cons that integrate back into society. And even if it is a prison system built on punishment before rehabilitation the latter is still a very important part of the system.

[Eel O'Brian]

I'm in favor of brutal punishment for certain types, and I don't make any excuses for it. I think there's a line, and once you choose to step over it you voluntarily give up all your expectations for humane treatment. Your human rights end once you destroy the lives of other human beings. That fucker who shot up that movie theater? He'd already be in the ground, in a hole he dug for himself. Pedophiles? Close your eyes, count out loud to ten, and somewhere between one and ten a bullet is going to enter your brain. Rapists? Dick and balls gone, tag inserted under your skin so we know where you are 24/7. Serial rapists? Close your eyes, count to ten, etc. There's room for nuance there, certainly, but if you're caught dead to rights for any of that stuff (like the movie theater guy), fuck you, you're evicted from planet.

[brob]

That's one thing if death row and lifers were dropped in some escape from NY style prison all on their own, but generally they serve in the same facilities that house other convicts as well, no?

"The recidivism rate for prisoners released from prison within one year is 44.1%; this number rises to 67.5% within three years of being released from prison."

[Momo]

So?

Justice is just a fabricated concept made up by men in suits.

Is 3 years in prison "justice" for raping a person? A 100 euro fine for crossing the street on red? Who decides whats justice?

Revenge is real justice.

[Boogie]

If it's a violent rape where the guy is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, I could definitely support dick and balls removal.

Ah, so proposing different punishments based upon a tiered conviction standard, eh?

There's guilty, but only guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

And then there's guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.

[brob]

Can we also introduce a probably guilty tier?

How many times have you been in a court room and seen a shifty looking bloke get off because of nonsense like "lack of evidence"? That ain't right.

[Cerveza mas fina]

What does that gif mean momo?

If someone would murder my fiance, or another close relative im pretty sure id hunt them down myself and not settle for some lame 10 year sentence for the perp. Or id wait for them to serve time first and the go do good.

[Momo]

Some men just want to see their beards burn


If we lived by your laws, then the next person would have to murder you to get revenge, then someone has to avenge you. etc etc till all that is left on this planet are a few ponies, birds and one overly obese cat.