Correctional Healthcare Consultant Gene Baldwin's Letter to The Editior

July 7, 2004

To the Editor --

Last week, a man housed in the McCracken County Jail suffered an apparent heart attack and died. His name was Larry Smith, and he was black. Having been involved in correctional healthcare for several years, I can anticipate two typical public reactions to this sad event:

1. His death was somehow the result of negligence by correctional staff, and

2. His death was somehow the result of anti-Black racism.

The correctional setting is largely misunderstood by those who have never worked or lived there. Indeed, the everyday person has formed an image of what goes on in a jail based primarily on portrayals by Hollywood producers and "investigative journalists". And when tragedy strikes within a facility,s confines, this public perception kicks into high gear.

Everyone gets to read about the two unavoidably generic allegations noted above, but the purpose of this letter is to offer a perspective that represents the reality of what occurred in the circumstance of Mr. Smith,s sudden departure from this world.

Anyone who wants to believe that Smith was neglected or was somehow "allowed" to die because he was in custody, or because he was black, need only have been there, in the jail, and seen the intense, coordinated efforts put forth by those working to resuscitate him. They need only have been there, in the jail, and seen the heavy impact and the emotional toll taken on those whose efforts, in their own minds, "failed" because God had other plans -- plans that no amount of human intervention could alter.

It is a sad but inherent truth that those who work in the correctional environment, day after day, minute by minute, are called upon at a moment,s notice to deal with some of the most intense situations found in the human condition. And sadder, still, that those often heroic efforts are reflexively met with disdain, derision and even litigation by a public biased against them from the start.

 

Gene C. Baldwin

Tell City, IN

812-843-5048