Copy
In 2006, Randy Lavespere, a Louisiana doctor, was convicted of buying $8,000 of methamphetamine in a Home Depot parking lot with intent to distribute. He served two years in prison, and his medical license was revoked. But even though he had been convicted of a felony and barred from practicing medicine in most circumstances, he was allowed to treat patients in at least one setting: Louisiana state prisons.
In November 2009, just one month after the Louisiana State Medical Board reinstated his medical license and put him on indefinite probation, Lavespere was hired as a physician at the largest maximum security prison in the country, Louisiana State Penitentiary better known as Angola, after the plantation on which it was built. Lavespere rose through the ranks at the prison, becoming the institution’s medical director in November 2014, less than three weeks after his license was fully reinstated. Earlier this year, he was promoted again, and now serves as the top doct
Prison life in the U.S. is tough. But when you have an intellectual, developmental or cognitive disability – as hundreds of thousands of Americans behind bars do – it can make you especially vulnerable.
In March, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the federal agency tasked with gathering data on crime and the criminal justice system, published a report that found roughly two in five – 38% – of the 24,848 incarcerated people they surveyed across 364 prisons reported a disability of some sort. Across the entire incarcerated population, that translates to some 760,000 people with disabilities living behind bars.
Around a quarter of those surveyed reported having a cognitive disability, such as difficulty remembering or making decisions. A similar proportion reported at some point being told they had attention deficit disorder, and 14% were told they had a learning disability.
A historic surge : Anti-Asian American hate incidents continue to skyrocket despite public awareness campaign N dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY Stop killing us : Asian Americans decry spike in violent attacks amid pandemic
Replay Video UP NEXT
Violence against Asian Americans and Asians has grown despite increased national attention and political action against anti-Asian hate, experts said.
There was a more than 164% increase in anti-Asian hate crime reports to police in the first quarter of 2021 in 16 major cities and jurisdictions compared with last year, according to a report from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
View Comments
Violence against Asian Americans and Asians has grown despite increased national attention and political action against anti-Asian hate, experts said.
There was a more than 164% increase in anti-Asian hate crime reports to police in the first quarter of 2021 in 16 major cities and jurisdictions compared with last year, according to a report from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
More than 6,600 hate incidents have been reported in the year after the pandemic began in the United States, Stop AAPI Hate announced this week. More than a third of those incidents were reported this March alone, according to the organization founded last year in response to increased targeting of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the pandemic.