Editor:
Thank you for the articles you published on the use of prescription medications in the Rio Arriba County Jail. This is a serious issue which requires continuing scrutiny. I disagree, however, with the suggestion that Director Bidal Candelaria is somehow responsible for wanting to zombify the inmates, or that he might have the authority to override a doctor’s prescription.
As District Public Defender for this area, it is my experience that Mr. Candelaria and his senior staff are very concerned about the physical and psychological well-being of the inmates in their care. It is not uncommon for them to contact us when they think an inmate may have slipped through the cracks of the court system, or to let us know that a client’s mental or physical condition is deteriorating. Under Mr. Candelaria, the jail has expanded substance abuse treatment, increased the availability of mental health resources, and facilitated inmate contacts with families and legal counsel.
Our society places an impossible burden upon our jails: they are supposed to house large numbers of inmates with mental health, substance abuse, and violence issues, and somehow keep these inmates safe and make them better people while at the same time punishing them, all on inadequate budgets.
No jail can do this perfectly. But Mr. Candelaria has shown that he cares about the inmates in his charge, and he strives to improve the conditions in which they live.
Bennett J. Baur
District Public Defender,
North-Central New Mexico