US prisons double as mental wards

By Katherine Stapp

New York, New York, Mar. 1 (IPS)— There are more mentally ill people in jails than in psychiatric hospitals in the West, according to a new study that says it is doubtful they are getting the treatment they need.

One in seven inmates suffers from a mental illness that could be a risk factor for suicide, says the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet. This represents more than one million people in Western countries.

The study’s authors, Seena Fazel of Oxford University and John Danesh of Cambridge University in Britain, surveyed data on the mental health of 23,000 prisoners in 12 Western countries over a period of three decades.

They found that prisoners “were several times more likely to have psychosis and major depression, and about 10 times more likely to have anti-social personality disorder, than the general population.”

This means that in the United States, which has a prison population of about two million (out of a world total of nine million), a few hundred thousand prisoners might be seriously ill — twice the number of patients in all US psychiatric hospitals combined.

“Given the limited resources of most prisons, however, it seems doubtful whether most prisoners with these illnesses receive appropriate care,” say Fazel and Danesh.

A report by the US Justice Department last year confirms this grim picture. The agency counted some 280,000 state prison inmates with serious mental illnesses — more than four times the number in state mental hospitals. Almost one-third of state prisons do not routinely screen inmates for mental illness, the report found.

The Justice Department said that 80 percent of sick inmates were getting some kind of treatment — usually medication. This left one- fifth of inmates to fend for themselves in a stressful and punitive setting, experts point out.

“I am repeatedly horrified by the violence prevailing in prisons and jails [which are now] the largest mental asylums in the United States,” says Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist who wrote an expose of the treatment of mentally ill inmates titled “Prison Madness.”

In the isolation units, he says, “I [was] shocked to see the degree of psychosis — inmates screaming obscenities, cutting themselves, and smearing feces — the likes of which I have never seen anywhere else in 25 years of clinical practice.”

Critics note that sick inmates in ultra-high-security “Supermax” facilities, which minimize human contact to the point of sensory deprivation, often get much sicker there.

In a Feb. 11 article in the American Prospect magazine titled “Return of the Madhouse,” investigative journalist Sasha Abramsky asserts that “Supermax prisons are becoming the high-tech equivalent of the nineteenth century snakepit.”

Abramsky describes instances of extreme self-mutilation by distraught prisoners — like gouging out of eyes — and sadistic punishment of mentally ill inmates by guards that sometimes resulted in death.

Pelican Bay, in the state of California, was one of the first Supermax prisons built in the United States and remains one of the most notorious. Its austere cells measure 7.5-by-11 feet and are positioned so that the 1,200 inmates cannot see each other or the guards. They are confined 23 hours a day and must wear shackles even during their exercise hour. Food is pushed through a metal slot in the door.

While these prisons were designed to house “the worst of the worst,” they also seem to have particularly high rates of mental illness among inmates. In Washington State, which Abramsky notes is known to have “one of the more humane, rehabilitation-focused prison systems in the country,” about one-third of inmates in Supermax facilities had a serious psychiatric disorder. This is twice the rate of the general prison population, Abramsky says.

Pelican Bay is one of three Supermax facilities now being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union, which claims that this type of prison inherently violates the US Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

US lawmakers are starting to expand local initiatives that offer alternative sentencing options for mentally ill defendants. Last November, Congress authorized four million dollars to create pilot mental health courts, which would allow non-violent offenders with documented mental illnesses to get treatment instead of going to jail.

“As a former prison psychologist, I’ve seen the damaging effects that a prison environment can have on mentally ill petty offenders,” says Ohio Congressman Ted Strickland, who sponsored the bill. “These courts are just the first step in easing the burden on law enforcement officials, who are forced to serve as surrogate caretakers for mentally ill offenders, and give mentally ill individuals the help they need to avoid future run-ins with the law.”

Experts point to the evisceration of the country’s mental health system in recent decades — more than 90 percent of beds in psychiatric wards are gone — as one big reason prisons are filling with ill inmates.

The federal budget unveiled last month does not increase mental health spending, which advocates say really amounts to a cut when factoring in inflation.

The Lancet study analyzes data from Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. The authors note that only one-third of prisoners live in Western countries, but about 99 percent of available data on their mental health comes from the developed regions of the world.

This, they say, “underscores the need for greater forensic psychiatric research in non-Western populations.”

Incarceration rates reveal striking racial disparities

New York, New York, Feb. 27— Human Rights Watch (HRW) today released the first state-by-state incarceration rates for whites, blacks, and Latinos based on actual correctional facility counts. The figures, compiled from census data for the year 2000, reveal the high percentage of blacks that are behind bars and dramatic racial disparities in the incarcerated population.

“This data demonstrates clearly the marked racial disparities in the US prison population,” said Jamie Fellner, HRWs US program director. “It is astonishing that in some states, one in ten black men is [sic] behind bars.”

Among the findings: Blacks and Hispanics make up 62 percent of the incarcerated population, though comprising only 25 percent of the national population; between ten and fifteen percent of black men are incarcerated in twelve states (Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming); black women are incarcerated at rates between ten and thirty-five times greater than the rates of white women in fifteen states (Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming); and Hispanic youth are incarcerated at rates seven to seventeen times greater than those of whites in Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, while the incarceration rate for black youth is between twelve and twenty-five times greater than those of whites in Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Massachusetts, Montana, and New Jersey.

The figures compiled by HRW include racial breakdowns for each state of the percentage of adults incarcerated; the percentage of men aged 18-64 incarcerated; the percentage of women aged 18-64 incarcerated; the percentage of juveniles incarcerated; the percentage of juveniles in detention; and the percentage of state population versus incarcerated population.

“There are striking differences among the states in terms of racial disparities,” said Fellner. “States need to look at their policies to figure out what is causing the problem.”

The US Census Bureau, as part of the census, compiles figures on the number, race, and age of persons confined in state, federal, local, and other correctional institutions and facilities in each state. Human Rights Watch used these figures and census population data for state residents to derive rates of incarceration by race for each state.

Source: Human Rights Watch World Report

NATION BRIEFS

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“There is a dramatic increase in the amount of money proposed to be spent next year for monitoring in the US,” said Marc Rotenberg of Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). The report, “Paying for Big Brother: A Review of the Proposed FY2003 Budget for the Department of Justice,” analyzes and criticizes the budget request. (Newsbytes)

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The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the operation has been in effect since the first hours after the Sept. 11 attacks but has evolved over time.

Originally designed to help the government withstand Cold War nuclear threats, the shadow government plan was activated out of heightened fears that the al-Qaida terrorist network might obtain a portable nuclear weapon. (AP)

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The Iowa House, on a mainly party-line vote, gave final approval on Feb. 26 to a measure that makes English Iowa’s official language.

The bill now goes to Gov. Tom Vilsack for his signature. Vilsack has indicated he will sign the bill, but he also offered some criticism of it.

“The true test is whether the Legislature stands by his commitment to provide the resources to help people actually learn English,” he said. “Without that commitment, this is symbol without substance. (UPI)

Anti-drug group lied about underage drinking
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