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Advocates for people with disabilities filed a lawsuit Thursday accusing Alameda County of engaging in systematic discrimination against inmates with disabilities who are incarcerated at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Alameda County Superior Court and is brought by Legal Services for Prisoners with Children on behalf of themselves and their members and two taxpayers alleges that “the jail’s inhumane conditions and discriminatory treatment of people with disabilities denies these people the basic rights to appropriate facilities for simple human necessities.”
The suit says such necessities include toilets and showers and access to educational and rehabilitation programs that can reduce the jail sentences of inmates with disabilities.
Disability Rights Advocates attorney Stuart Seaborn, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said the suit seeks no monetary damages but aims to compel Alameda County to stop using taxpayer funds to further the allegedly illegal and discriminatory conditions at Santa Rita Jail.
Seaborn said the suit alleges that the county has a systemic practice of housing men and women with disabilities at Santa Rita Jail in cells and housing units that lack wheelchair accessible toilets, showers, and visiting areas.
He said the suit also claims that the jail segregates certain people with disabilities from the general population by housing them in the Outpatient Housing Unit, also known as the infirmary, which operates similar to solitary confinement.
Seaborn said conditions at that unit compromise the health and welfare of men and women with disabilities and result in the denial of access to critical rehabilitative programs, religious services, and outdoor exercise.
He said that without wheelchair accessible toilets that have grab bars, people with mobility disabilities cannot transfer themselves from a wheelchair to a toilet.
Alameda County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson said he couldn’t comment on the suit at this time because the Sheriff’s Office hadn’t seen it yet.
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This suit is almost funny, think about what they are saying.
Seaborn said the suit alleges that the county has a systemic practice of housing men and women with disabilities at Santa Rita Jail in cells and housing units that lack wheelchair accessible toilets, showers, and visiting areas.
They are in Jail, not the Bahamas.
He said the suit also claims that the jail segregates certain people with disabilities from the general population by housing them in the Outpatient Housing Unit, also known as the infirmary, which operates similar to solitary confinement.
Yup, they are in Jail, not Cancun.
Seaborn said conditions at that unit compromise the health and welfare of men and women with disabilities and result in the denial of access to critical rehabilitative programs, religious services, and outdoor exercise.
Religious services, really. and outdoor exercise. This doesn’t make any sense. Read it and think about what this is saying.
He said that without wheelchair accessible toilets that have grab bars, people with mobility disabilities cannot transfer themselves from a wheelchair to a toilet.
So what have they been doing all these years?
This whole thing stinks to high heaven, nothing but another attorney looking to make a quick buck at the taxpayer expense. Maybe the attorney should spend some time in jail for fraud on the taxpaying public.
We need a law where if one of the ambulance chasers loses, they pay all the costs associated with defending the case.
Larry is so correct…the animals are in jail where they belong. They are lucky they have a roof over their head. If it was up to me exercise would be a walk in the rain at mid-night with their under garments only.
These are criminal’s folks…wake-up.
Thanks Julia Pardini from Alamo
The three comments are actually a joke! You are all sick and should be in jail. No matter if they committed a crime they are still human beings and should be treated the same.
You tell them Vinnie! Just because you’re a gimp doesn’t mean you’re a bad person!!
Again, multiple comments from the sicko who trolls using many different names.
Last time I looked, many jail inmates are awaiting trial. In other words, they have neither been found innocent or guilty. But lets make wheelchair bound suspects poop in their pants because, hey, this isn’t Cancun.
The sicko who uses multiple names above would no doubt be comfortable being jailor in Idi Amin’s regime. He recently lost his job (couldn’t get along with anyone), his guys lost big time in the election, and his wife cut back on his allowance. All he has left is the hatred he spews on virtually every PW thread. Creates the illusion there are more than one sicko out there. Nope, it’s this guy and this guy alone.
Hey there’s a lot of us out here and we are all
different people with the same opinion. You would love
to think there’s only one person with many names, but
guess what….I agree with these people. Your comment
triggered me to say so. It is JAIL. It’s meant to be bad
so people don’t want to go back there. If these people
were soooo religious, they wouldn’t be in jail. Solitary
is a good way to think about what they’ve done. It’s not
supposed to be entertaining!
they are human beings and should be treated as such and not as animals unless you want them acting as animals when they are released. the guards are far worse than the cons and have great pay and benefits. most that are in prison have long ago stopped being threats to society. we just released over 20,000 due to overcrowding and not a peep about an increae in crime.
NO????? Are you kidding me???
Of course theres more crime!!!! Haven’t
you been watching the news? Even the
Liberal news is reporting! Oh my God
Wake up!!! These people are in jail for
a reason. They aren’t just picked up off
the street for nothing. They acted like
animals before they were in jail and that’s
why they are in jail. You want to coddle
them into being good human beings???
What they need is tough love bootcamp style!
Crime is down nationally and in Pleasanton.
Nationwide:
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/june/crimes_061112/crimes_061112
Pleasanton:
http://www.ci.pleasanton.ca.us/pdf/police-2011annualreport.pdf
ptown native is so delusional he actually thinks readers can’t identify him as the repeating sicko that he is, on this and every other thread. verbal sewage: by any other name, call yourself whatever you like, the stench remains the same. Find some help.
Just once I’d like for one of these scumbag lawyers to be on the receiving end of “diversity” in the Santa Rita jail. Unfortunately, they’ll probably win this case. I wouldn’t be surprised in the building unions put them up to it. Unfortunately, the prisons will be retrofitted and made modern before the schools will. But remember, the Democrat party who keeps raising tuition on California public universities every year and doing everything the prison unions tell them – is the party of education.
I have a solution for the inmates with disabilities. Put them in a comfy wheelchair, wheel them up to a table, and have them peel potatoes 14 hours/day. At the end of their shift, they will be too tired to watch TV so you can get rid of their color TV.
You don’t want to do the time, don’t commit the crime.
I think many of you miss the point, yes they are criminals but they have either a physical or mental disability and should have accomodations to meet their needs. Regardless of someone who is incarcerated without a disability, they still have access to toilets, showers, educational and rehabilitation programs. Just because you have a disability you are denied and treated like an animal?! Come on folks, we are not barbaric cave men, we HAVE come a long way.
Hey Vinnie, where the heck are you from anyway? This thread is the exclusive province of a sicko who goes by the name of batguano/lib is a disease/wmtell/ptownnative…. Another of his non de plumes, steven, should be expected shortly, followed soon thereafter by arroyo and the other names he uses.
So, Vinnie, renounce your education, your humanity, and step into the world of sick. Enjoy.
There is no honor in kicking someone who is already down.
Denying access to what you already have in place for everyone else serves no purpose.
Making it more difficult for an already disabled individual to use the restroom is just plain mean.
Mike
I think we should all meet this scumbag disallusioned punk
in a dark alley somewhere and show him/her that we DO
‘all’ exist. I am a middle aged woman who speaks her mind
and let’s the chips fall where they may. I would still put
money on ‘me’ that I would kick his living butt. Come on!
It’s just like a liberal to try and squelch anyone’s opinion
that doesn’t agree with ‘their socialist-mind-think’.
We’re more ‘liberated’ than ANY of them. It’s hard for them
to realize we think for ourselves.
God be it, that we are of Likeminds.
I just wish that more liberals could actually spend some time in jail – being incarcerated. Then they can experience firsthand what “tolerance,” love of “diversity” and promotion of the homosexual agenda gets them.
Ptown Native, very classy. You and the “others” you name yourself give Pleasanton a good name. Continue to hate, never give it up, until it swallows you whole.
dear “Ptown native”,
For a “middle aged woman”, you sure do a good impression of a 13 year old boy. I remember being that age too, and I remember experiencing all of its frustrations. Don’t worry, it gets better.
Equating transferring yourself from a wheelchair to a toilet as a trip to the Bahamas and/or Cancun displays a level of ignorance that is difficult to ignore. If we reduce ourselves to denying that to people in jail, it speaks more about us than them. I suggest to those who have not experienced being in a wheelchair should give it a go (pun intended). Going on a toilet should not be a priviledge of those who are able bodied…
Wouldn’t it be great if criminals really feared jail and prisons so much that they would not commit the crimes?
We have a family friend that owns many family style restaraunts. When he had to comly with the ADA laws and make the restrooms wheelchair accessable he complained (from his 8 bedroom, 10 bath, 12,000 sq ft home) about the expense cutting into his profits. When one of his kids was injured in an accident and is now wheelchair bound, he changed his tune and is now a staunch advocate for wheelchair accessability everywhere.
Using the restroom as a handicapped person is not a privalage, it is a right. Whether you are incarcerated or not. it is also the law (ADA). you cold hearted posters should try it some time.
Frank, your story of ‘privalage’ belongs in and ADA approved toilet. Only lawyers benefit from this abuse of our laws for the disabled. Your defense of criminal cripples is very magnanimous. Maybe they deserve erly releases for potty ‘privalages’.
i once had a neighbor family who were struck by a drunk driver. all three family members were wheel chair bound. then they were sued by the drunk driver and lost all their savings.
their church helped them through, and now all three members are top notch marathoners and magnanimously give to their church and other churches too. how did they do this? lots of prayer and great emergency room treatment even during the five years of therapy they went through. needless to say they declined any socalled magnaminous assistance from the state.
the drunk driver invested wisely and now is a job creating hero. god works in magnanimous ways.
Mr. Truthiness, once upon a time, long ago in a far away land (maybe Dublin) the PW readers actually believed your fairly tale. Bet you were the drunk drivers lawyer…..
physically challenged criminals with lawyers looking to bleed taxpayers of even more money because they are so ‘special’. What they hell are these parasites thinking?
Bat guano, excellent suggestion. Look, the rest of you bleeding hearts, if these ‘special’ perps were not getting coaught committing crimes, they don’t deserve special treatment.
The conditions in jail are supposed to serve as a deterrent. These people have no respect for the rule of law and no doubt have little respect for themselves, otherwise, they wouldn’t be putting themselves in this position.
Keep your nose clean and then you can poop in your pants at home instead of Santa Rita.