A federal judge could terminate parts of the decades-old consent decree mandating oversight of St. Croix’s John A. Bell Correctional Facility by the end of the month.
Attorneys representing the United States Justice Department and the territory filed a joint motion in November asking the court to discontinue court-ordered monitoring of medical care for incarcerated people. If the motion is granted, monitoring of mental health care at the prison would continue.
U.S. District Judge Wilma Lewis said during a status conference Thursday that she’ll wait to see the court-ordered compliance monitor’s next report — due April 24 — before she makes a decision.
Monitors’ last compliance report assessed medical and mental health care independently “because several provisions do not pertain specifically to Medical compliance and doing so is an unreasonable barrier to compliance progress for each area,” according to the report. The separation put medical care at 95 percent compliance and mental health care and suicide prevention at 66 percent compliance.
Lead monitor Kenneth Ray told the court Thursday that the forthcoming report will show most medical provisions in sustained compliance. The remaining three — related to staffing levels, training and dental care — are in substantial compliance. Lewis said she’d expect a filing explaining why the section should be terminated when those three provisions were below the mark as recently as last year.
The parties’ joint motion only calls for the termination of medical provisions, but attorney William Lunsford told the court in November that the territory hopes to close out other sections of the consent decree in similar fashion. According to a slideshow he presented at the time, sections related to the sexual abuse of prisoners, the use of physical restraints on prisoners, the handling of prisoner complaints, and administrative investigations could be next. Sections on fire safety, environmental health, training and mental health could follow.
