FW: Alabama prison article

[Dianne Tramutola-Lawson]

 

 

From:  AL-CURE chair, Rosemary Collins

 

From: ROSEMARY T COLLINS [mailto:rosem...@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2016 2:38 PM

 

Blood on the floor

Suicides rise as mental health care in Alabama prisons goes on trial

Amy

Yurkanin

ayur...@al.com St. Clair Correctional Facility inmate Joshua Dunn slashed his arm with a razor in August 2013 after his call for mental health went unanswered.

Dunn, who said he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, said he was in crisis. It was the first time he cut himself, but not the last.

Dunn cut himself five more times to obtain mental health treatment he couldn’t get by asking, according to the inmate’s declaration — filed as part of a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections and its mental health provider, MHM Services, Inc.

On Monday, a non-jury trial will begin in a lawsuit alleging inadequate mental health care in the state prison system — and it could last for almost two months. The outcome of the trial could affect not just 25,000 inmates in Alabama, but also those across the country, housed in prisons that are absorbing an increasing number of people with schizophrenia and other illnesses. More people with serious mental illness receive treatment in U.S. prisons and jails than state psychiatric hospitals, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center.

In Alabama, the number of prisoners on the mental health caseload has increased even as the overall number of inmates declined last year. Still, the number of inmates on the mental health caseload is far below estimates of mental illness occurring in the state’s prisons, according to the lawsuit. Officials from the Alabama Department of Corrections and MHM Services, Inc. declined to comment. In a response to the complaint, attorneys for the state have denied the allegations.

The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Corrections has not funded an adequate number of psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses — and often relies on unlicensed mental health workers to provide care. As a result, inmates receive little more than prescription drugs.

Although Dunn is one of the lead plaintiffs, attorneys said the case is not about whether any particular inmate received adequate care.

“What the prison system has to do is maintain an adequate system for anyone who needs it,” said Lisa Borden, an attorney for the firm Baker Donelson who is working on behalf of the inmates. “The state needs qualified mental health professionals to handle the mental health caseload.”

RAZOR STILL ON THE FLOOR

After Dunn cut himself, prison officials took away his good time credits and assigned him to segregation, according to his declaration. He slashed himself with razors four more times while he sat in solitary confinement.

He said he spent two-and-a-half weeks on suicide watch without ever seeing a mental health worker. When he returned to his cell after the first incident, Dunn’s blood and the used razor still sat on the floor.

The last time he cut himself, Dunn contends that guards waited more than three hours to remove him from his cell. Then they handcuffed him, hit him and said they would “let [his] bitch-ass die,” according to the document.

In its response, the state said Dunn’s calls for mental health care were not ignored, and that he was placed on the mental health caseload.

MORE SUICIDE ATTEMPTS

The number of attempted suicides jumped from six in fiscal year 2010 to 54 just five years later.

In fiscal year 2015, six inmates died from suicide — the highest toll available from records dating back to 2007.

The number of patients subjected to involuntary treatment with medication has also increased during that time, according to the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program have said that dozens of inmates could testify over the course of the trial.

“Inadequate mental health care is a violation of the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment,” said Maria Morris, senior supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Patients exhibiting symptoms of mental illness often end up in solitary confinement, Morris said, which limits treatment even more.

“They are locked in a small cell,” she said. “To the extent that they get any counseling at all, it is a few minutes through their cell door.”

SYSTEM ‘CONTINUALLY ON TRIAL’

In a series of town hall meetings earlier this year, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Mental Health Jim Perdue proposed a plan to take over the mental health contract for the state prisons.

That way, prisoners identified as mentally ill could continue treatment in the community after release, he said. MHM Services, Inc. received a three-year contract in 2013 worth $36 million a year.

The mental health lawsuit is the latest in a long line of cases focusing on conditions inside Alabama’s prisons. Many of the allegations contained in the mental health lawsuit echo those from a 1972 case also filed in the federal courthouse in Montgomery.

U.S. Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered the state to make changes to its healthcare system in order to better serve inmates with mental illness. Another lawsuit related to mental health treatment followed in 1992.

“Basically, the prison system in Alabama has been almost continually on trial since the 1970s,” Borden said.

Attorneys filed the lawsuit in 2014. Along with claims of inadequate mental health care, the original complaint alleged that poor healthcare had contributed to inmate deaths and injuries. Those claims will be heard in a spring trial.