Epstein’s Death: Why Are You Surprised America?

What is so laughable are the facts that: 1. They are surprised that he was able to kill himself; and 2. In order to cope with the reality of how fallible our criminal justice system is people are reporting all kinds of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein’s demise.

Was Epstein assassinated by the Clinton’s? Was Bill Gates involved with his death? Did Trump hire a team of elite assassins to infiltrate the jail through ventilation pipes, break into his bomb-proof cell, strangle him, and make it look like a suicide by wrapping a sheet around his neck?

The fact of the matter is, America, suicide while in custody is not something that is unheard of. In fact, it’s pretty common. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, suicide is the leading cause of death in local jails. I myself witnesses my friend Kurtis being carried away on a stretcher after he hung himself with a bed sheet in Pierce County Jail’s mental health “tank.” The most messed up part about Kurtis’ death was the fact that he killed himself minutes after he plead for help to a mental health provider.

The harsh reality that is easier swallowed by coating it with conspiracy theories is the fact that our system operated from arbitrary attitudes when it comes to ensuring inmates – whether rich or poor, guilty or innocent – are put in places where they can’t hurt themselves or others. Furthermore, it goes without saying that the American government operated from solely reactionary responses as opposed to preventative ones.

“There’s nothing out of the ordinary about what happened to Mr. Epstein. …This is just the baseline dysfunction of prisons and jails and how suicide prevention in most prisons and jails is a joke.”
—David Fathi, American Civil Liberties Union, Huffington Post

After Epstein committed suicide, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has gone the expected knee-jerk reactionary route by indicting underpaid and overworked corrections officers and putting other staff under investigation for forging logs and sleeping on the job.

Newsflash my fellow Americans! Officers forge logs and sleep on the job all the time. Literally, there are times when I can look out my cell window at night and see the guy on duty snoozing. This happens everywhere.

The fact that we need to face is that our criminal justice system has widespread systemic issues that range from inadequate mental health care, overly-harsh prosecution, hardline laws such as “three-strikes” laws, and a general theme of punishment and oppression The reason that Epstein was able to commit suicide was because of these widespread issues; his death is simply a symptom of them. Clearly, if one acts surprised that an inmate on suicide watch was able to kill themselves then that person is disconnected from the state of our jails and prisons.

According to The Marshall Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system, “Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide in a New York jail followed steep and persistent staffing shortages that exceeded the rate of decline in the federal prison population…”

The point of this article is to address these issues as well as urge my fellow citizens not to pass blame on the low-ranking correction officers.

The effort required to fix our broken system (yes, it is arguably broken when it can be said the U.S. has the highest percentage of incarcerated people in the history of the world) can happen at all levels, not just at an upper echelon executive level.

Just last week while reading “The Economist” I happened upon an article about a sheriff (Tom Dart of Cook County Illinois) who is going above and beyond at his own level to fix his jail:

“The sheriff’s response has been to try making his jail ‘the best mental health hospital possible. He has done away with solitary confinement, a practice which has long been known to cause and worsen mental woes (doing so has also cut staff assaults, he says) He appointed psychologists as jail directors and hired medically trained staff in place of some guards. Inmates can take courses in yoga, chess and other activities intended to rehabilitate.”
—Chicago, “The Economist” – August 10, 2019

Like Sheriff Dart, every citizen has the ability to recognize and acknowledge the issues of our criminal justice system. Furthermore, also like Sheriff Dart, every citizen has the ability to take action to affect change. Whether or not that involves volunteering at a local jail for activities, sharing this article, or becoming a defense attorney for the ACLU, anything is better than nothing.