Nassau jail needs a hard look

It's time to put the Nassau County Correctional Center under a microscope. Four Nassau County inmates have committed suicide over the past 12 months, and the facility and its procedures need a speedy, comprehensive review. Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice last week joined state officials, inmate advocates and the New York Civil Liberties Union in calling for such a study, to be conducted by independent experts, and those calls should be heeded by the federal government.

Earlier this month, inmate Darryl Woody, arrested on domestic violence charges, hanged himself at the Nassau University Medical Center, which provides medical care for inmates of the Nassau County jail. Woody, who reportedly suffered from depression and schizophrenia, was placed in the hospital after he slit his wrists in the jail's mental health tier. The suicide of a man who had just tried to slit his wrists is particularly troubling; Woody, clearly willing to do himself great harm, should have been under closer watch by corrections staffers, even while getting medical care.

The jail had significant problems from 1999 until 2005 - so much so that it was placed under federal oversight, as was the NUMC inmate unit. Federal officials began monitoring the jail because of overcrowding and in response to the 1999 beating death of an inmate. Insufficient inmate medical care was also cited.

That consent decree was lifted in 2006, and between 2006 and 2009 the facility didn't have a single inmate suicide. But Herve Jeannot and Gasparino Godino hanged themselves in the jail in October, as did Eamon McGinn a year ago this month.

The jail houses 1,500 inmates, or 1.7 percent of the state's incarcerated population, but was the scene of 10 percent of the state's suicides by prisoners over the past year.

These deaths aren't the only signs of problems. Former prison grievance officer Mark Barber, a corrections worker at the jail for 22 years whose responsibility was handling complaints from female inmates, was indicted last year on 80 charges that include rape, sexual abuse and forcible touching involving seven women. Barber, accused of using his position to manipulate jailed women into sex acts, pleaded not guilty in September.

So the county needs answers. Each of the suicides created a mandatory probe by the state Commission of Correction, but they normally take 13 months to complete. That's too long. An immediate, comprehensive and professional evaluation of the jail's practices by outside experts is what's needed.

Once the review is done, the county must respond to its findings and recommendations quickly and thoroughly. It's not time yet to cast blame. But it's past time to assess where it might fall and to find and implement solutions to protect Nassau's inmates. hN