Riots, lockdowns and disease: Are Missouri prison inmates living in inhumane conditions?

A Missouri statute allows members of the General Assembly to visit state-run prisons at any time. The law overrides a directive issued by Missouri Department of Corrections Director Anne Precythe to Ronda Pash, warden at Crossroads Correctional Center, to deny entry to the prison.

But the recent refusal to allow state Rep. Brandon Ellington, a Kansas City Democrat, to check on prisoners housed at the correctional facility in Cameron could be the least of the state’s concerns if a class-action lawsuit determines prison officials are subjecting inmates to inhumane conditions.

Inmates’ complaints about health and sanitary conditions, food service, reduced visitation times, recreation time out of cells and other concerns have largely been ignored.

A riot broke out in May at Crossroads. The prison has been on some level of lockdown since.

Although prison officials say many services are slowly returning to Crossroads, inmates insist in dozens of letters to Ellington that basic necessities remain unavailable.

“If people aren’t concerned about inmates, they should at least be concerned about their tax dollars,” Ellington said.

Henry Service and Arimeta Dupree, two Kansas City attorneys, plan to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of inmates in Missouri claiming inhumane treatment and constitutional violations, among other things.

If the state won’t allow access to prisons, then maybe a lawsuit will get their attention, Service said.

“We, as a society, have to decide what we want to be,” he said.

Dupree said the U.S. and Missouri constitutions, as well as state statutes protect inmates from being subjected to such treatment.

“Prisoners or not, this is a human rights issue,” she said.

Dupree makes a valid point. It’s illegal to deprive inmates of nutritious meals and expose them to diseases such as MRSA, a dangerous bacterial infection, as some prisoners have claimed.

“We do not lock people up in disease-ridden environments,” Service said.

Ellington was denied entry last week to the prison to meet with inmates about their concerns, which also include a lack of access to the prison’s law library.

He filed a formal complaint with the governor’s officer over the denial, telling The Star that the department’s reasoning for preventing the visit was suspect.

“Now, not only do I have concerns about taxpayer dollars . . . (and) about the people who are confined to this facility, I now have concerns about the warden breaking state statute and state law,” Ellington said.

Inmates are human beings. They deserve basic protections. As Ellington points out, not everyone in a correctional facility is a lifelong criminal. And all prisoners have rights.

Taxpayers in Missouri need to know if prison officials are subjecting inmates to cruel and unusual punishment. More transparency and accountability are the only way to reassure the public that state officials are upholding the law.

That starts with Precythe, Pash and other wardens across the state. They simply cannot be in charge of correctional facilities if they don’t follow the law.

This story was originally published September 4, 2018 at 5:30 AM.