Dametria Mcdile

They did everything wrong pertaining to Dametria Mcdile’s medical emergency. It’s no secret that when somebody complains about chest pains, immediate medical attention should be given. Aside from individual staff members who didn’t take Dametria’s cries seriously, I also blame the institution for operating with an atmosphere of neglect. This is not a secluded situation, I’m sure if we look into many other aspects of the jail such as its infrastructure, food, and staff occupancy, we’ll be sure to see the operational failures. The thing that hurts the most is that Dametria is a mother of 6 which means that distrust could be a collateral inheritance for the children. Then we wonder why many people don’t have confidence in our carceral system. It started many years ago and continues to reinforce itself.  

What happened to Dametria Mcdile is inexcusable, but the cold hard truth is that it happens everyday in the prison system. Dametria had chest pains and she was vocal about them, so-much-so that she made phone calls to her family complaining about her discomfort. This is allegedly after her failed attempts to get staff to help her. And let me be the first to say that when an inmate says that they have chest pains, immediate medical attention is supposed to follow. There is no institution in America that don't have that same protocol... except for apparently the CJC in St. Louis, MO. 

This is not the CJC's first death do to medical neglect. In fact, the CJC have recorded 22 in-custody deaths since 2020. And judging how staff treated Dametria's family, upon them demanding answers, it's obvious that empathy is not a shared response to death at the workplace. Prisonism has become so accepted in our carceral system that officers, inmates, and even the public has become numb to demanding accountability when the system screws up. We've begun to think like infants when it comes to problems in our carceral system, not fully understanding the full circle that imprisonment travels to disrupt our "free world."

Taxes, lawsuits, crime, welfare, disability, social security, housing, healthcare, property value, parenting, mental health, suicide rates, life expectancy, divorce rates, etc. etc. etc. are all affected by our carceral system. Until we as a nation create an environment that is productive for inmates, our communities will neither be safe nor worth the taxes. We wake up and a mother of 6 has died in the care of the Justice Center; what happens to those children? The human toll associated with neglect is far too high in our prison system. It's time we stop this practice (of prisonism).