MSNBC reported that the Netflix series "Orange is the New Black" is not only a hit in critics and customers of the digital streaming company, but also to inmates in the Suffolk County Jail. The fascination in the comedy-drama series is allegedly because the prison life in the show is mirroring the conditions of the prisoners in the detention facility.
Attorney Corey Staughton of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who represents along with Shearman & Sterling the Suffolk County Jail inmates, said, "In real life, the inmates in the Suffolk County Jail, they're not treated like human beings. They're treated like animals."
The prisoners had since been seeking legal action over the purportedly deplorable dwellings in the very facility where parts of the Netflix show have coincidentally been filmed. MSNBC said that the NYCLU has decided to draw attention to the plight of the prisoners in a new social media campaign aptly called "Humanity is the New Black" in the hopes that fans of the show would be able to tie the issues in the "Orange is the New Black" to the ones people who are incarcerated in Suffolk Country Jail experience in real life.
According to Staughton, the lawsuit was lodged after the inmates have made over a hundred complaints to courts about the facility's conditions. Complaints collected by the NYCLU from the inmates at the Riverhead-based jail and its detention unit in Yaphank range from black mold in the showers, undrinkable water, sewage overflowing into their cells, and "ping pong toilets.
"You have people who will go to maximum security facilities, but you also have people who have been arrested for minor crimes, the folks in that jail will run the whole gamut in terms of the charges they're facing,"Staughton stressed.
Staughton said that although the lawsuit has seen progress, the County has been fighting back to ensure that information needed by the NYCLU on why the facilities are poorly managed. The lawyer admitted that they have been having difficulty getting information needed as part of the discovery process.
"This is not how we treat human beings. Any fan of the show will understand that there needs to be a little more of an element of humanity in how we treat people who are incarcerated," Staughton said.
