NHPD Treatment of Detainees Needs to be Revamped

The tragedy that recently happened to Richard Cox while in the custody of the New Haven Police Department which left him paralyzed from the chest down is an affirmation of the type of treatment detainees have been subjected to for years while confined in the NHPD lock up.

It should not have taken a drastic situation such as this to promulgate the contemptible conditions detainees are exposed to. This is New Haven, Connecticut in 2022 not a third world country where prisoners are held in unhygienic and unhealthy conditions, denied toilet tissue and women refused sanitary products. A detainee can call for an officer for an emergency situation for fifteen minutes and just be ignored. The cells are filthy and not cleaned between one person leaving and the next coming. We also should remember that these people are not convicted of any crime, they are only charged. That means innocent until proven guilty. There is no reason any human being should be placed in these unendurable conditions.

If the detainee is unlucky enough to get transported to the courthouse in New Haven the conditions are no better. Men are placed in one large cell and women in another. There is one skinny piece of wood to sit on if you are fortunate enough to get a spot, if not you sit on the cold,dirty, concrete floor for 6 to 8 hours. You are fed a sandwich of dry bread with some type of meat on it, an apple (maybe) and an orange drink to last from 6am to 6pm. While I was at the courthouse a woman who was inebriated on "wet" attacked a young woman who was on the floor (because there was no place to sit) and pulled out clumps of her long hair, worse still because they keep their leg irons on she was standing over her with her shackles in her throat. The other women were yelling and it took a good 5 minutes to get marshals into the cell to offer assistance.

What is it going to take to get changes to be made?