Scathing report after scathing report from the State Commission of Correction revealed to New York Focus contributor Laura Robertson a pattern of neglect in county jails across the state — with deadly consequences. Robertson wrote about the systemic medical neglect by private companies providing healthcare for New York county jails in her recent investigation. I spoke with her about her investigation and how she used a database of state records to uncover the story.

AA: The story is about privatized medical care in jails, but who are the public entities here that are part of this web?

LR: All of these jails are publicly held jails so funded with money we pay in tax dollars. Another part of this is SCOC, which oversees jails across the state. They do investigations any time someone dies in jails they have an investigation into why that person died, so if you’re interested in your county you can find it online. They are able to suggest county jails change their medical provider but are not actually in the business of forcing the jails to change their medical providers.

AA: What is the effectiveness of public scrutiny over the jails?

LR: It’s varied at different points, people have filed lawsuits which held these companies accountable once the Attorney General’s office got involved. Sometimes there’s pressure from people, protests to change.

One person who I spoke to who had a mother who died in prison didn’t know until I spoke to her that there were records available that showed how the person died and how he’d been neglected leading up to his death. They don’t even know that there’s tangible proof out there, then they are able to file lawsuits and keep companies accountable.

Listen to Laura Robertson’s radio interview about her investigation on the deathly track records of private corporations providing medical care in jails. 

AA: At the center of her reporting were these public records. How did they direct your reporting and what do you want people to know about them?

LR: I always take notes on all of them and there were several moments where either was reading these reports and thinking to myself, scathing. I would find out that afterward that county continued to get care provided by the same provider. In some cases the providers changed. But in some cases there would be multiple scathing reports in a row from the same provider and same county. And I think reading all of those things really cemented the way I was thinking about this story, reading all those things really directed how I wrote this story.

There have been hundreds of deaths in jails over the last few decades, those records are available and they may not be telling the relative of the people who died that those records are available but if you or a loved one know someone who died in jail or just want to check out what’s going on in the county you can find all of that information and its available. I think it’s really important for people to know they exist.

New York Focus has published thousands of pages of county jail oversight records. Browse them in our database.