Family members of those incarcerated in special housing units and several women formerly confined to those types of cells provided emotional testimony at a press conference held by Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement last Tuesday.
They were calling for the passage of a bill (S.2207) establishing residential treatment programs for the rehabilitation and confinement of inmates with serious mental illnesses in a way consistent with the needs of the mentally ill and security and safety of the prison workers.
At the conference several advocates arrived dressed in hospital gowns and placed boxes over their heads in protest of the cramped and confined conditions that inmates placed in a special housing unit, or SHU, must endure.
They recounted stories that revealed how SHUs impacted those with mental disabilities; by their accounts these conditions allowed for bleak violations of human rights and disregard for New York state law. Manifested in outbursts and tearful recollections, they offered blurry fragments of obviously painful stories including the rape, suicide and mistreatment of prison inmates.
Brenda Jerry, an ex-prison inmate, told the audience of mostly mental health advocates that she had been diagnosed with acute bipolar disorder before entering the prison system. While in prison she was placed into confinement where she was molested by guards, “beaten black and blue in places it don’t show,” and had her dignity stripped away.
Other women told tales of children in confinement who lost a dangerous amount of weight, their sanity, or even their lives.
The Correctional Association surveyed 162 prisoners with mental illness in special housing units and found that between 1998 and 2001, over 50 percent of the system’s 48 suicides occurred in 23-hour lockdown, which is the normal stay without human interaction, sunlight or fresh air, that an inmate can experience in a SHU. Fifty-three percent of inmates with mental illness in SHUs reported previous suicide attempts while in prison.
“These figures make horribly clear that the SHUs are lethal to these vulnerable prisoners,” said Michael Seereiter, public policy director for the Mental Health Association of New York State.
Jack Beck, director of the Prison Visiting Project, said that the legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Queens, and Sen. Michael Nozzolio, R,C-Fayette, would help mental health workers to intervene before the mentally ill go to an SHU.
“Prisons are a dumping ground for the mentally ill,” Beck said, “and SHUs are a dumping ground for the prison system.”
Opposition to the bill, which passed the Assembly with an overwhelming vote of 135-7 in late March, included a handful of Assembly members who had various arguments with the bill as it stands.
Assemblyman Robert Reilly, D-Colonie, voted against the bill because of concerns placing dangerous mentally ill inmates in Office of Mental Health facilities that lacked untrained guards would put surrounding communities and others in danger.
“In this legislation there are 6,000 individuals involved and when you have these people in prisons they are a potential danger to themselves, other prisoners and people guarding them,” Reilly said. “You want to make sure they are in a secure facility. The question is who is best prepared to protect the people?”
Assemblyman David R. Koon, D,I-Perinton, has strong feelings that any inmate determined to stay out of the SHU could simply feign a mental disorder and receive a lesser punishment.
“To try and determine if someone who committed a major crime has major mental problems is difficult,” Koon said. “If I wanted to pretend that I had a major problem I could probably pretend that I do.”
Seereiter confirmed that both of the issues expressed by the assemblymen are valid, but that each is addressed in the legislation through a mandatory 40 hours of mental health training for prison guards and extensive psychological screening for the inmates who arrive at a separate facility.
“We will not be satisfied until treatment is consistent and humane across the board,” said Aubry, who spoke at the press conference amid cheers of thanks from the audience. “It has to stop completely.”
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