The Victims Behind Bars
BY WALLIS LINKER
Law and Order, Orange is the New Black, and The Wire are rife with depictions of the incarcerated criminals and the government agencies that deal with this sector. But, as is often the case with TV, these shows misrepresent life behind bars in state and federal prisons. The quality of life in these institutions is by no means frilly or relaxed; inmates are burdened physically and mentally by the conditions in which they are held. This burden is significantly worse for those who enter the institution with pre-existing mental disabilities. There has been a rise in the number of incarcerated mentally ill inmates in recent years, which has heightened the injustice of prison conditions.
In 2003, Director of the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch Jamie Fellner said, “Prisons have become the nation’s primary mental health facilities.” In 2006, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that over half of all incarcerated individuals had mental health issues — a figure of 1.25 million. Other studies reported that by 2010, 40% of the total mentally ill population in the U.S. had been in jail or prison at some point in their life.
This trend between mental illness and incarceration can be traced back to the 1950s when a policy of deinstitutionalization—the emptying of state mental hospitals—took hold. Between 2010 and 2013, mental health service funding across the nation was cut by $3.5 billion. As a result, the mentally ill, especially among the homeless, addicts, and poor, are denied access to medical help and end up facing mandatory sentencing for even low-level, nonviolent crimes. In the process, they suffer an unsuitable punishment. Employees at the Department of Corrections are not taught how to recognize and handle mental illness. Joe Baumann, a corrections officer at the California Rehabilitation Center argues that “there’s a lack of any real training to identify specific issues and how to deal with them.” However, this is not only a question of training; existing programs are not utilized. According to a report from the Department of Justice, more than half of inmates with mental health problems never receive treatment prior to incarceration.
Prison life is trying for mentally competent inmates, and thus can be especially challenging for the mentally ill. For example, mentally ill prisoners can be sent to super- maximum security prisons like Colorado’s USP Florence Admax (ADX), due to poor management and clerical loopholes. A complaint was filed in 2012 alleging that “the disciplinary model at ADX is often an instrument of terror and abuse, deployed by staff members… mentally ill prisoners, including those in the throes of a psychotic episode frequently are subjected to barbaric treatment…mentally ill prisoners are routinely ‘four pointed’— chained by the arms and legs to a concrete block…”
Exacerbating the problem, mental health professionals ignore requests for treatment, creating a cycle: inmates become sicker, they are not given treatment, and then they behave worse, justifying, in the minds of the prison officials, a harsher treatment that then stimulates psychotic episodes. This treatment within such facilities is unwarranted. The inmates do not have the same control over their actions, and even their crimes, that the mentally stable do. This handling is not within the realm of due process.
Something needs to be done to remedy this treatment of the mentally ill. In 2003, Human Rights Watch took a stance on the issue, outlining possible ways to start a positive change. It urged Congress to enact legislation that would provide federal grants to enroll the mentally ill in treatment programs as well as improve the overall quality of the mental health services prisons provide. Human Rights Watch also advised that independent mental health experts be used to evaluate the current available mental health services and to bring them up to the community standards of care. Finally, Human Rights Watch reiterated that mentally ill prisoners should not be sent to isolated confinement or super-max facilities. When an individual is convicted of a crime in the United States, he or she must pay for it in a manner deemed fit under the law.
When an individual violates the laws, he or she breaks an unspoken contract with the nation and loses his or her ability to claim certain rights; for example, a convicted sex offender may not be able to live within a certain distance of a school. But locking the mentally handicapped away in regular or supermax prisons strips the inmates of their basic rights. How can this treatment possibly lead to rehabilitation? How can it dissuade criminal actions? Harsh treatment of mentally ill patients doesn’t deliver justice; it violates basic human rights.