Suffering from an abscessed tooth, a homeless person inhabiting the bushes along the Empire State Trail is out of luck.
Many 40-hour-a-week workers will suffer the mental and emotional pains of depleting their savings as they struggle to pay their health-insurance deductibles.
Individuals suffering tooth pain in the Ulster County Jail have their own set of challenges in receiving medical care in a carceral facility, but cost isn’t one of them. Prisoners incarcerated for committing all types of common crimes — assault and battery, armed robbery, burglary, fraud, even the convicted rapists — receive free healthcare.
Sheriff Juan Figueroa acknowledges the irony.
“If you’re looking at it that way, and I can definitely understand what you’re saying,” said Figueroa, “I also understand that [the criminals] are now in the custody of the county and the sheriff, and if something happens to them, the liability is on us. And they can sue us and make tens of millions of dollars doing that. So we’re obligated to have medical care for them if they’re at our facility.”
This May, the Ulster County Legislature authorized paying $4.23 million in taxpayer dollars to healthcare contractors Prime Care to provide comprehensive medical, dental and vision care for inmates at the county jail.
“We’ve been averaging approximately 195 to 200 [inmates] per month,” said Figueroa. “Right now, I think we have 209 in the facility. When I first took office, the count was about 260 inmates a month. After bail reform was passed but not yet in effect, it went down to about 170 inmates a month.”
In February 2020, just a month before the county recognized that the Covid pandemic had arrived, Figueroa recalled, the number of inmates had dwindled down to just 99, an all-time low. It wasn’t that fewer crimes were being committed. It was just that fewer people were being sent to jail for committing them.
When the pandemic hit, the courts shut down entirely. Now, roughly two years later, Figueroa said that the numbers he’s seeing reflect the courts catching up to the criminals.
“For example, the folks that committed the same crime over and over again because there was a pandemic and the court system was shut down were not [being] held accountable,” Figueroa explained, “where now, it’s catching up to them, and the courts are putting people in the facility until their case is adjudicated.”
Tales of good and evil
Figueroa agreed that a healthy proportion of those incarcerated in the Ulster County Jail are not innately bad or evil as much as they are addicted to drugs, developmentally disabled, emotionally stunted, traumatized, or cognitively challenged.
“A lot of the folks that are in the facility suffer from one sort or another of a mental disease or a mental-behavioral issue,” acknowledged Figueroa. “We have about 42 folks that are in the Medical Assistance Treatment Program (MAP), and to put that into perspective these are individuals that are committing crimes to support their habits. Are they true criminals if they weren’t addicted? Probably not.”
Identifying the underlying factors motivating inmate behavior could suggest a course of treatment other than locking them in a room and keeping an eye on them — and at a cost hopefully lower than what a member of the sheriff’s office estimated was approximately $425 a day.
“As we adapt in the correctional setting, you’re going to see numbers drop eventually as we get help to these people and try to stop this chain of recidivism,” Figueroa said. “I’m not going to tell you that this is going to change overnight, but I’m hopeful and optimistic that the numbers will change in the future. At least we’re heading in the right direction.”
Identifying the motivation behind some crimes does little to excuse the actions of the perpetrators or give any real comfort to those affected.
“To say that there’ll never be a jail would be naïve,” says Figueroa. “You just saw that horrific crime where the individual decapitated somebody. There are evil people out there.”
The example to which Figueroa was referring involved a 32-year-old Pennsylvania man who made headlines in February after he allegedly decapitated his own father and displayed the severed head in a YouTube video.
Ravaged by stress
At the same legislative meeting the county authorized the $4.23 million for incarcerated healthcare, the county also signed off on an annual amount of $258,000 to create the Ulster County Sheriff’s Officer Wellness Unit.
“Those that have to show up and see the worst things in society,” said Figueroa, “they go untreated all the time. That’s why we have high alcoholism. That’s why we have a high suicide rate. And depression.”
The list of stressors for professional law enforcement goes on: Intense public scrutiny, the ever-present risk of physical harm, isolation, witnessing injustice, legal and ethical challenges, challenging work-life balance, and above-average levels of spousal abuse combine to paint a picture of human beings ravaged by emotional and mental stress.
“People in this profession are afraid to get help because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their jobs,” said Figueroa. “These are people that interact with victims all the time and have to deal with the repercussions of having to go and notify somebody that someone has passed away or go to the scene of a horrific crime or accident. We’ve really forgotten about what these folks go through on a daily basis that normal people don’t go through.”
As a young state trooper, Figueroa became familiar with officers dealing with the stress of their profession by heading to the bar, where, alcohol aside, there was often the undeniable benefit of an emotional support group.
He was being honest, said Figueroa. “But that’s not what we do today. Society has changed. People are on the computer all the time. They really communicate less than they ever did with another human being.
“And It’s not just law enforcement,” he said. “These are your firemen. These are your nurses. These are your assistant prosecutors at the DA’s office. This is about identifying and getting the help to those individuals that deal with those issues.”
Figueroa is grateful for the legislature’s buy-in to pre-emptively identifying and treating the mental and emotional conditions underlying preventable tragedies in his own force. He foresees a picture of a carceral system developing wherein future generations find a different way of holding people accountable.
For the treatment of the mental and emotional conditions which underlies criminal transgressions, the county can be grateful for its effect on lowering crime. But it begs the question: Will future generations spend taxpayer money on the mental, emotional and medical health of the residents of the county before they are arrested?
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