When a prisoner is given a sentence, the expectation is that they serve it with a focus on successfully bringing them home rehabilitated and ready to contribute to society.
D.C.’s prison closed decades ago, so once its inmates are sentenced, they are sent to federal prisons all over the country. Both inmates and experts told the News4 I-Team they often feel targeted.
According to Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) data analyzed by the I-Team, at least six D.C. inmates serving in federal prison have been killed in the past four years. This does not include the dozens whose deaths have been ruled natural or “other.” Some of their families are still wondering what happened to them.
Derek’shea Hawkins is now among them. She said her husband, Camara Jones, was a dutiful father but also a complicated man who went in and out of prison. A parole violation put him back behind bars — this time thousands of miles away. Hawkins told the I-Team her husband felt targeted.
Hawkins said he told her, “For some reason they just automatically don’t like people from D.C.”
The distance made it almost impossible for her to see him in person. She said she couldn’t afford to travel thousands of miles with their children, so their communication was limited to letters and very few phone calls where the news was not always good.
Hawkins said Jones expressed concern for his safety and told her he had been injured but didn’t say by whom. He described having a broken collarbone and fractured ribs, according to Hawkins.
Then the news became unbearable
“I missed him prior to this and, now that I know he’s… now it’s a different feeling because I know he’s not coming home,” Hawkins said.
On March 22, Jones’ body was discovered in the Special Housing Unit, a form of isolation for prisoners also known as the SHU, at USP Victorville in California. His death was ruled a homicide.
“The coroner’s office called me and told me that they had his body,” Hawkins said.
“I asked her, you know, about the autopsy and, like, what happened,” she said. “And she said, well, it doesn’t say anything. The only thing that it says is that he was found standing in the shower. And I inquired, like, how was somebody deceased standing in the shower?”
Prisoners can be removed from general population and placed in the SHU for various reasons, including if they’re part of an investigation, for discipline or for protection at their request. Hawkins said she doesn’t know why Jones was there.
According to BOP records obtained by the I-Team, correctional officers tried to resuscitate Jones after he was found leaning against the shower. A roommate also in the cell was restrained and removed but not named in the report.
Five months before Jones’ death, Robert Jeter — another D.C. inmate serving time at Victorville — died after being found unresponsive inside the SHU.
Initially ruled undetermined, the BOP now list his death as a homicide caused by blunt force trauma.
That update in his cause and manner of death was confirmation for his mother, Christina Jeter. She told the I-Team last spring that doctors who tried to revive her son at a California hospital told her he was severely injured. Christina recalled them saying, “So severely that his brain had swollen and hemorrhaged and that he was beaten so severely that his liver was split.”
Jeter said USP Victorville would not confirm those injuries to her. And they were not mentioned in the prison’s incident report on his death obtained by the I-Team. Those records do, however, confirm that Jeter was also found in the SHU and in the shower, just like Jones.
“So many D.C. prisoners have a level of insecurity and instability that other state prisoners don’t have,” said Brenda V. Smith, professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law.
Smith has studied and advocated for improved conditions for D.C. prisoners since the city’s Lorton Reformatory closed in the early 2000s. She is critical of the city sending its prisoners to federal prisons around the country.
“They’re going to a place where nobody knows them,” Smith said. “Nobody has heard about them and all they’ve heard is about, you know, this D.C. population that’s coming to them that is entitled, who is violent.”
Smith said that makes D.C. prisoners who are in federal prisons more vulnerable because most of their families are not able to routinely check on their well-being due to the distance.
“We cannot send people all over the U.S. and have them moved around like checkerboards and be able to keep up with them,” said Smith.
Nailah Seabron of the D.C. Corrections Information Council (CIC) – the city agency that bridges the gap between D.C.’s inmates, the federal prisons and the city’s legislators – said they visit up to five or more prisons a year, checking on conditions and talking with D.C.’s incarcerated.
“We are here to give them a voice,” said Seabron.
CIC makes recommendations based on what they find to the BOP and D.C. officials.
In a CIC Inspection Report of Victorville from 2016, numerous D.C. inmates said the prison was unsafe and dangerous with high rates of gang-related violence. More than half the inmates interviewed reported being assaulted and expressed fear for their safety or lives. D.C. inmates also complained they were sent to the SHU more than others and were called troublemakers.
The I-Team asked the BOP about those complaints.
“The Federal Bureau of Prisons takes seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintain the safety of correctional employees and the community,” a spokesperson said. “We make every effort to ensure the physical safety and health of the individuals confined to our facilities through a controlled environment that is secure and humane.”
As for what happens to those CIC recommendations, Seabron said, “I would hope that they’re reading (the reports) and taking in the information … Change comes from legislation, and until there’s specific legislation enacted, we just keep churning out reports.”
The I-Team reached out to the office of D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto, chair of the Judiciary and Public Safety Committee. A Pinto spokesperson responded in a statement that said, “The homicides in the federal Bureau of Prisons facilities are extremely troubling. When D.C. residents are incarcerated in the federal system far away from the District, this makes oversight of their custody, rehabilitation and successful reentry much more difficult and less just. I will continue to work with Congress and our federal partners on oversight to ensure the safety of District residents and will keep fighting for more local control over our jail and prison system, agreements to have residents serving time in federal BOP facilities to do so closer to home, and local control over our parole system. I am grateful to the work of the CIC to continue their important visits and oversight work over the federal Bureau of Prisons and the D.C. Department of Corrections.”
CIC does not have the power to enforce its recommendations, and it’s only notified of an inmate’s death in federal custody when the BOP issues a press release.
The I-Team asked how the CIC can properly do its oversight work and data collection without being notified of all D.C. inmate homicides and other deaths.
“I think that that’s where the families come into play,” Seabron said. “If they contact us and they let us know what happened, then we can contact the powers that be at the BOP and inquire within. That’s just the flow of information at this time.”
In another CIC inspection report at Victorville from 2022, there were fewer complaints about violence among inmates, but a quarter of the D.C. inmates there were housed in the SHU at that time.
The San Bernardino (California) Sheriff’s Department told the I-Team the FBI is investigating the homicides of Jones and Jeter. Hawkins said the FBI confirmed to her it’s investigating.
The BOP said that due to privacy, safety and security reasons, it couldn’t comment on the condition or any potential investigations involving inmates when asked about the deaths of Jeter and Jones.
Meanwhile, Hawkins and her children wait and hope to one day understand what happened.
“You know, you want to have answers, like, why he was there in the first place, why was he that far … let alone why he’s not coming home at all,” she said.
Reported by Tracee Wilkins, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper.
