Allegheny County residents voted to ban the use of restraint chairs at the county jail nearly four years ago, but new efforts could seek to overturn the moratorium.
Some advocates and corrections officers say they plan to ask County Council to amend the referendum, which was adopted into the county code in 2021, after voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative sharply limiting the use of solitary confinement and barring the use of restraint chairs, chemical agents and leg shackles on incarcerated people.
John Kenstowicz, who advocates for improved living and working conditions at the Allegheny County Jail, has been one of the driving forces behind the push to reinstate the restraint chair for use during medical treatment and when transporting incarcerated people.
“It is much more humane for a resident to be sitting in a chair, transported, instead of officers holding and carrying a resident, risking injury to the resident and to the officer,” he said at a jail oversight board meeting Thursday.
But the restraint chair remains controversial. Prior to the referendum, incarcerated people alleged that jail officials used the restraint chair as a punishment. After a combative episode, they might be locked in the chair for hours at a time and denied food or bathroom breaks or be pepper-sprayed. Critics argued it was used in place of adequate medical and mental health care, and the practice was the subject of multiple lawsuits against the county and the jail.
Human rights groups and advocates for incarcerated people have condemned the use of restraint chairs, noting that they’ve been linked to multiple deaths. In 2000, the United Nations Committee Against Torture urged American jails to eliminate the practice, writing that it “almost invariably” led to violations of the group’s Convention against Torture and Other Cruel or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Brian Englert, president of the Allegheny County Prison Employees Independent Union, said the referendum deprived corrections officers of a key tool needed to immobilize violent people. He argued warden Trevor Wingard is changing the jail’s culture, which would prevent employees from misusing or abusing the chair.
In banning its use, “you are valuing vanity, political victories more than the safety of the inmates, the county employees, and the general public,” he told the oversight board.
The proposal received vociferous pushback from others at Thursday’s meeting.
“The duress of incarceration is traumatic enough without adding to it the physical and mental impacts of medieval techniques that have been used and abused inside our county jail,” said Sharon Bonavoglia, a member of the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network. “It is well past time for the pursuit of more humane ways to problem solve inside the jail.”
“There's been a history of abuse with this kind of chair. That's why it's been outlawed, and that's the way it should stay,” said local resident Diana Hull.
The jail administration “does not have a position” on reimplementing the chair, said jail spokesperson Jesse Geleynse.
“The jail follows the law as approved by the voters of Allegheny County,” he said in an email.
Kenstowicz said they’ll seek to get the plan in front of council as an agenda initiative, which allows residents to propose an ordinance after gathering 500 signatures in support. The timeline for doing so is unclear.
