Dying on the inside
April 25th, 2012 | by Emma Slater | Published in Bureau Recommends
Mentally ill inmates in the US are frequently put in solitary confinement, sometimes indefinitely.
Inmate abuse by prison staff in Pennsylvania has led to at least two suicides, an extensive report by magazine the Nation alleges. As the US Department of Justice mounts an investigation, journalist Matt Stroud describes how ‘deplorable’ prison conditions can not only exacerbate, but cause, life-threatening mental health problems.
In America, the charity Human Rights Watch estimates that up to 19 % of prisoners ‘have psychiatric disorders…and another 15 to 20% require some sort of psychiatric investigation.’
Psychological problems worsen, the charity stated in its 2009 report, Mental Illness, Human Rights and US Prisons, if inmates are placed in isolation for long periods:
‘The stress, lack of meaningful social contact, and unstructured days can exacerbate symptoms of illness or provoke a reoccurrence. Suicides occur proportionately more often in segregation units than elsewhere in prison. All too frequently, mentally ill prisoners decompensate in isolation, requiring crisis care or psychiatric hospitalization. Many simply will not get better as long as they are isolated,’ revealed the charity.
In his detailed and shocking report for the Nation, Stroud explains how the men who committed suicide at SCI Cresson, Pennsylvania, had a history of mental health problems, but neither was given medical treatment. Rather, prison sources say that the two, John McClellan Jr. and James Willett, were physically and mentally abused, held in solitary confinement, and, in the case of McClellan Jr, ‘goaded’ to kill himself.
He told his father that [corrections officers] had threatened to kill him and make it look like a hanging.
While Stroud’s article is a little light on statistics, he does provide strong case-based evidence of the issue. He explains how John McClellan Jr was found hung in his cell on May 6, 2011. His suicide was allegedly a result of years of abuse in prison, and long-term isolation. Word had spread, McClellan said before his death, that he was the son of a police officer. As a result, the inmate said he became a victim of abuse by corrections officers (COs) and other prisoners.
‘Every time he wrote up a grievance…They would come back, write him up for something and put him in the hole sixty days at a time.’ McClellan’s father told the Nation.
Stroud explains: ‘By the time the younger McClellan arrived at SCI Cresson…he was convinced he was going to die. He told his father that COs had threatened to kill him and make it look like a hanging. His mental state was gradually deteriorating, and he was reportedly on medication, although it is not clear what he was prescribed.’
According to the Nation’s sources, the prison authorities were notified of the suicide risk, but did nothing. ‘If he’s going to act on it, he’s going to act on it’, a ward manager allegedly told another inmate.
In March 2012, 24-year-old James Willett also died at SCI Cresson. He had ‘repeatedly requested’ mental health treatment but those requests were denied, claimed a prison source. If there is one criticism of Stroud’s article, it would be that it does not go into the details of Willett’s case, without explaining why.
SolitaryIn 2000, the Pennsylvania prison system introduced a new tactic to deal with delinquency: the Long Term Segregation Unit (LTSU). The LTSU was an isolation programme, to house the most dangerous and disobedient prisoners. The inmates of the LTSU stayed in their cells for 23 hours a day, for up to 36 months. In 2005, the LTSU was replaced with a new program: the Secure Special Needs Unit. Unlike the LTSU, the SSNU was, reportedly, designed to provide prisoners with psychological problems with a safe, secure environment, rather than to be used as a punishment.
However, Stroud says, there is evidence that while the name changed, the methods didn’t. One man kept in solitary confinement, Tracey Pietrovito, was allegedly held in the SSNU for months in conditions that could amount to torture. Stroud describes how Pietrovito had to sleep on concrete, as his mattress was removed.
Sources also alleged that the guards would ‘refuse to provide him with toilet paper for significant periods-forcing Pietrovito to wipe himself with his hand-and then refused to provide him with soap before he ate his meal, served without utensils.’
Following such claims of abuse, the US Department of Justice instigated an investigation into SCI Cresson and another prison – SCI Pittsburgh. The investigation will consider whether the institutions ‘provided inadequate mental health care to prisoners who have mental illness [and] failed to adequately protect such prisoners from harm’ and whether subjecting prisoners to excessive periods of isolation violated the US eighth amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The Nation believes that the case could be a milestone in the fight to protect the human rights of prisoners, particularly those suffering from mental health problems.
‘The DOJ investigation has the potential to further expose the utter depravity…of the prison system’ Bret Grote of the Human Rights Coalition told the Nation. ‘Instances of cruelty and insanity are deliberately multiplied by government employees as a matter of policy,’ he said.
Read the full report in the Nation here.
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I am the mom of James Willett, and would love to share about his mental health history with someone or some agency that will listen. I also found out that there has been a third suicide at SCI Cresson. Another young man in his early 20's with mental health problems. I can be reached at dwillettadvocacy@gmail.com
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