MENTAL HEALTH IN PRISONS: STATE AND FEDERAL
Dr. M. Blatstein
WHITE-COLLAR SUPPORT AND SOLUTIONS | PHYSICIAN PRISON CONSULTANTS | PRESENTENCE REPORT SERVICE
A state forensic psychiatric hospital is a secure facility meant to incarcerate people until they're restored to mental competency. They're then transferred to public hospitals and city jails and then back to prisons like Rikers, where the cycle can repeat.
Restoring the competency cycle shouldn't last longer than a year. The process can be endless, with limited beds, staffing, and a complicated nationwide bureaucracy.
Then there's Idaho, where they continue to keep some psychiatric patients in prison, ignoring decades of warnings about that practice.
"Marilyn Sword urged lawmakers not to ratify a system that would ultimately lock away some of Idaho's most debilitated psychiatric patients in the tiny, concrete cells of a maximum security prison — a kind of solitary confinement with no trial, no conviction, and often no charges."
At the start of 2023, their Legislature continued holding them without charges at the state's maximum security prison south of Boise. All of this perpetuates a person's downward psychiatric spiral until some are just lost.
My Comments: A prison's main job cannot be to house those who are mentally ill, meaning that our justice system needs a second look - for those who are suffering from psychiatric illnesses.
MEDICAL CARE
"...the BOP did not have a reliable, consistent process in place to evaluate timeliness or quality of inmate healthcare." DOJ OIG Audit
Healthcare depends in part on your client's preparation for their presentence interview, knowledge of medication; availability or understanding (and expecting) the process of therapeutic substitutions. Then already prepared to implement the system that BOP has in place so that they can address their concerns through their Administrative Redemy Process, which they encourage.
The Dark Side of Medical Care In Today's Prisons
The "Exposing Parchman" documentary at the Mississippi State Prison
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As unnatural deaths in federal prisons require an autopsy - most deaths in federal prisons are classified as 'natural.'
NPR found cases where medical neglect, poor prison conditions, and a lack of resources contributed to these deaths. Families were given little information. NPR found that the CDC says natural deaths happen mostly due to disease or old age. Yet 70% of the inmates who died in federal prison in the last 13 years were under the age of 65.
Examples of "natural" deaths? An inmate in BOP FMC Springfield, Mo., waited weeks to be treated for bleeding in his digestive tract. He died soon after hospitalization. Another in Missouri died of respiratory failure, later treated as a homicide.
A prisoner's cellmate sends her brother a message that he "was running on the track and collapsed" and then was taken to a hospital. The family, not hearing from the prison, calls three hospitals in the surrounding area before finding the right one. The BOP finally calls the family two days later, telling the family not to worry. "We were so relieved..." Two weeks after his collapse, their brother died. His death was pronounced natural.
My Comments: What the patient-inmate and their family can do is prepare for their Presentence Interview on the federal side. The Adult In Custody (AIC) can start the Administrative Remedy Process with their family enlisting their Congressional Representatives to advocate on their behalf, along with Attorney Representation.
While the Administrative Remedy Process may not be available, getting the Media, Congressional Representatives, and Attorneys involved may be their only recourse on the state side.
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Marc, Dr. Blatstein
Humanizing Your Client Through Their Personal Narrative, Release Plan, and Allocution