(Feb. 5, 2014) It should come as no surprise that confining inmates with mental illness in prison cells without adequate treatment was found to be an inadequate way of dealing with seriously ill prisoners in Indiana (“Prison to show upgrades in care for mentally ill,” the Associated Press, Feb. 5).
By doing so, “the state system was violating the inmates’ constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment,” US District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled in 2012. “A prison that deprives prisoners of adequate medical care is incompatible with the concept of human dignity.”
Prior to the 2008 class action lawsuit that inspired Pratt’s ruling, mentally ill inmates in Indiana were routinely placed in solitary confinement, which usually results in a worsening of the symptoms including paranoia, depression, suicide attempts and extreme anxiety.
In 2005, an inmate in Indiana’s Wabash Correctional Facility committed suicide by setting himself on fire inside his cell.
Since being found guilty of acting “deliberately indifferent” toward the plight of inmates with mental illness, prison officials say there have been improvements to the system.
We applaud any and all efforts to improve the treatment of incarcerated people with mental illness. But if we really want to help persons with mental illness and severe mental illness who are likely to encounter the criminal justice system, then we need to collectively agree that criminalization of people with psychiatric diseases is a cruel and ineffective public policy and a gross waste of tax dollars.
What we need are public policies that provide treatment for individuals before they end of up in jail.
Read our study, "More Mentally Ill Persons Are in Jails and Prisons Than Hospitals."
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