Battered Enough

Battered Enough

LEAD: New York City's Department of Correction has stationed two officers outside Hedda Nussbaum's private room to guard her 24 hours a day. Has it really been necessary also to shackle and chain her by one leg to her hospital bed?

New York City's Department of Correction has stationed two officers outside Hedda Nussbaum's private room to guard her 24 hours a day. Has it really been necessary also to shackle and chain her by one leg to her hospital bed?

Hedda Nussbaum faces charges in the tragic death of 6-year-old Elizabeth Steinberg. She has a fractured jaw and fractured ribs. Her nose is broken. She has cuts and severe bruises all over her body. This once-vibrant woman looks like someone just out of a torture chamber.

It's doubtful that the chain and shackle have been necessary to prevent her from assaulting other patients or medical personnel at the City Hospital Center in Elmhurst, Queens. She was too battered to make a court appearance earlier this week, alongside the man accused of savagely beating her and the child. It's equally doubtful Ms. Nussbaum could run very far. Even if she had the will to try, it would surely be surprising if the guards sat idly by.

There is no such shackling, nor costly surveillance, in secure medical wards set aside for male prisoners in city hospitals. But no secure wards exist for women prisoners who require hospital care. Decency argues for creating at least one secure ward for women prisoners. Ms. Nussbaum's plight is hardly unique. Yesterday, eight other women prisoners, most of them awaiting trial, lay sick, in chains, while guarded round-the-clock.

The public may feel conflicted about Hedda Nussbaum, charged with complicity in the beatings of a little girl. But she is also a victim. Shackles and chains inflict a kind of battering - for no good reason. Shackling is prohibited by state prison officials. The city's Correction Department now says that it will no longer shackle women, and will stop shackling men in general population wards within a week. When it does, it will be not a day too soon.