First, I want to say this, I believe, in fact, I know that we have conscientious leadership in this county that will likely support this idea.  I have already presented it in a public meeting, and I feel that the decision makers there were highly receptive. Now, it needs funded, designed, and implemented.  What the county commissioners need is to know that you, the public, who voted them into office, want this for our community as well, and are willing to fund it.  Tell them now:

In April, I met a developmentally disabled young man who was housed as an inmate in the Douglas County Jail.  He had failed to meet the terms of his probation, for stealing food, because he was hungry.  The justice system failed him in many ways, I couldn't tell you what was the worst of all, but in jail, he was starved.  At 6'7" tall, his ideal bodyweight is 220lbs.  He left the jail weighing only 170 lbs.  That is 50 lbs under his ideal bodyweight.  His legs looked like two strips of toothpaste, he looked like he had a wasting disease, or worse, but the medical staff at the jail insisted he was just fine and at a healthy bodyweight and denied him the food he asked for.

He had made many requests for more food, but it was somehow determined by staff in "medical", a clinic run by a private medical contractor called TK Health, formerly Turn Key Health Clinics, that these were "frivolous requests" and he was told by a lieutenant that if he sent any more food related requests, he would be disciplined.  I didn't know what a healthy bodyweight was, neither did Turn Key, but they know what a healthy bottom line is, and they also have the contract for nutrition.

I had only seen his young face, so I couldn't see how emaciated he had become until his release, and I was shocked.  Through all the time I spent talking to him, I started to research healthy body weight and while Turn Key uses a simple BMI calculator and calls it done, a healthy body weight for an individual in the 99.9th percentile of height, this is a lot more complex to determine, and requires various measurements and an evaluation by a qualified professional.  Clearly, he didn't have that, but TK Health (Turn Key Health Clinics...I think the name change is probably due to lawsuits) insisted every step of the way that he was receiving adequate care and nutrition.

I did call the jail to complain, but of course, I complained to a lieutenant, and a lieutenant is not a doctor or nurse.  I can tell them something is wrong and he needs to see medical and he goes to medical and is seen and they say he is fine...so what can anyone do? Who should a lieutenant listen to? I am not a medical professional either, and for a lieutenant to interfere in an inmate's medical care based on something an untrained member of the public tells them, because they searched it out on Google, could be deadly.  They took him to medical, medical said he was fine.  Over and over. 

And this vulnerable young man starved as a result.  

Our county is being taken advantage of by an exploitive healthcare contractor that starved a voiceless, vulnerable young man to fatten their pocketbooks.  

Know this:  the "Big 5" correctional healthcare contractors have an 18%-58% higher death rate than when public health or another government entity provides services within a jail.  In this political climate with the drastic defunding of healthcare, public health services are in big trouble, so this is unlikely to happen here, and even if it did, we still need external oversight of healthcare in the jail to ensure that inmates receive proper healthcare and nutrition.

I'd like to refer you to this document published by the American Bar Association in 2011 regarding the treatment of prisoners, so that you can consult the section on healthcare, and also to their 2008 resolution calling for independent oversight of correctional facilities.  

I'm sure the American Bar Association knows what they are talking about.  Criminal defense attorneys, prosecutors and  judges spend decades watching what happens to voiceless people and what hurts them and what helps them, so it's a good place to start.  I'll link to those references below.  

Please sign my petition advocating for independent oversight of medical care and nutrition in the Douglas County Jail.

https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/criminal_justice_standards/treatment_of_prisoners.pdf

https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/directories/policy/annual-2008/2008_am_104b.pdf

One last thing I'd like you to think about:  I was very concerned about this young man's safety upon leaving the jail, and since my brother in law also has Level 3 Autism Spectrum Disorder and has now become a successful engineer, who is married to a medical doctor himself and plays in a band, I looked to my younger brother's mother-in-law (seeing as to how she raised such a successful young man) to ask her advice about what sort of books I could send him to read in jail, something that might teach him how to be be safe when he left the jail, so would never starve again, and this is what she told me.  

~Think about what she has to say, and then think deeply about how exactly our justice system, cops, attorneys, judges, jailers, supervision officers, city and county governments, can stop doing harm, and start doing good:

"I am so sorry, Ellen, but I don't know of any books that can help this poor kid. He needs much more than a good book; he needs services and family members who can look out for him. He needs a great deal of support, financial, emotional, educational support, a stable home environment, people who can guide him, he needs to figure out what he wants to do with his life and learn how to make his goal achievable. I hope that he has somebody in his family who is responsible and who can take care of him for now, while he gets his life together. It's wonderful that you want to help him, but he has big issues that only experts and family, or people willing to act as family, can provide for him."

Please sign this petition.  Our county, our government, even the jailers, have been fleeced and taken advantage of financially by an exploitive and sociopathic "healthcare provider" and a young man starved.  He was 50lbs under his ideal body weight. 

Let's never let this happen again.