Human Rights Watch published a report May 12 that detailed the physical abuse endured by prison and jail inmates who suffer from mental disabilities. Jamie Fellner, a senior advisor at Human Rights Watch, authored the report, which exposes numerous examples of correctional officers in the United States abusing bipolar and schizophrenic prisoners because they were exhibiting symptoms and behaviors of their mental disabilities. According to the report, punishing inmates for experiencing symptoms of mental illness violates both the U.S. Constitution and international human rights laws.
Fellner chronicled the treatment of prisoners with mental disabilities. “Corrections officials at times needlessly and punitively deluge them with chemical sprays; shock them with electric stun devices; strap them to chairs and beds for days on end; break their jaws, noses, ribs; or leave them with lacerations, second degree burns, deep bruises, and damaged internal organs. The violence can traumatize already vulnerable men and women, aggravating their symptoms and making future mental health treatment more difficult. In some cases … the use of force has caused or contributed to prisoners’ deaths.”
Fellner explains how correctional staff are not trained in how to work with inmates who have mental disabilities and staff are rarely trained in de-escalation techniques. Furthermore, due to lack of funding and lack of political support, “many prisoners with mental disabilities are not receiving mental health treatment that could promote recovery, ameliorate distressing symptoms, and increase their skills and coping strategies to better handle the demands of life behind bars.”
No accurate statistics
There are no accurate statistics as to the number of injuries and deaths perpetrated against mentally disabled inmates. Similar to the epidemic of police brutality across the U.S.: “There is no national data on the prevalence of staff use of force in the more than 5,000 jails and prisons in the United States. Experts consulted for this report say that the misuse of force against prisoners with mental health problems is widespread and may be increasing. Among the reasons they cite are deficient mental health treatment in corrections facilities, inadequate policies to protect prisoners from unnecessary force, insufficient staff training and supervision, a lack of accountability for the misuse of force, and poor leadership.”
According to the May 12 New York Times , “[The] concern about how to care for the mentally ill in jails and prisons has intensified in recent years as people who may once have been sent to a hospital where they would have access to treatment are now more likely to be sent to prisons that lack sufficient psychiatric staff. … There are now far more people with mental illnesses in prisons and jails than there are in state psychiatric hospitals.” In 2006, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that more than half of all prison and jail inmates in the U. S. suffered from a mental health problem.
The Human Rights Watch report highlights the ugly fact “that US prisons and jails have taken on the role of mental health facilities. This new role for them reflects, to a great extent, the limited availability of community based outpatient and residential mental health programs and resources, and the lack of alternatives to incarceration for men and women with mental disabilities who have engaged in minor offenses.”
For a comprehensive examination of mass incarceration and its roots in U.S. history, read “Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America,” by Eugene Puryear. The author examines the evolution of mass incarceration as a political strategy pursued by both major parties.
Although the Human Rights Watch report makes a number of recommendations to improve conditions for inmates with mental disabilities, the real problem stems from the poverty and economic deprivation that underlie the entire discussion over “criminality” in the U.S. Although improvements in jails and prisons across the U.S. are desperately needed, ultimately the working class and oppressed people in the U.S. need to rise up against the massive attacks being waged by the capitalist class and overcome mass incarceration and the capitalist system. Mental health can thrive in a socialist system built on human need rather than the capitalist exploitative system built on the profit motive.
Dr. Chase is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and a psychologist who works in San Francisco and specializes in addictions and behavioral health.
