CPAC 2014 - Criminal Justice Reform

After 20 Hours in Solitary Colorado's Prison Chief Wins Praise

the New York Times

CAÑON CITY, Colo. — The cells where inmates are kept in solitary confinement at the state penitentiary here are 7-by-13-foot boxes arranged in semicircular tiers. When the warden, Travis Trani, heard that Rick Raemisch, Colorado’s new chief of corrections, intended to spend a night in one of them, he had two reactions.

“I thought he was crazy,” Mr. Trani recalled. “But I also admired him for wanting to have the experience.”

Mr. Raemisch has been in his job for just over seven months, having stepped in after his predecessor was shot to death a year ago Tuesday by a former inmate who had spent years in solitary. During that time, Mr. Raemisch has gained a reputation as an outspoken reformer and has made clear that he wants to make significant changes in the way the state operates its prisons.

Mr. Trani was given only about nine hours’ notice, and he rushed to make arrangements. An upper-tier cell was selected so that if inmates recognized Mr. Raemisch, they could not pelt him with objects from above. A code phrase, “I need medical,” was agreed on for him to use if he felt unsafe. He was advised to lay his towel across the cell door to block “fishing” — prisoners’ sending notes or other items into his cell using a weighted piece of string.

Shortly after 7 p.m. on Jan. 23, two corrections officers escorted Mr. Raemisch along the tier, removed his handcuffs and leg shackles, and slammed the door shut.

The directors of state prison systems tend to keep a low profile. But Mr. Raemisch’s brief prison stay — he spent 20 hours in the cell and wrote about the experience in an opinion piece in The New York Times last month — drew local and national headlines.

On Capitol Hill, where Mr. Raemisch told a Senate subcommittee last month that solitary confinement was “overused, misused and abused,” he was besieged by well-wishers, including representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union, who joked that directors in other states might now want to take “the Colorado challenge.” Others, though, called his action a politically motivated stunt. “This guy is jive,” said Peter Boyles, a conservative talk radio host in Denver.

Mr. Raemisch, 60, is not the first corrections director to criticize the widespread reliance of American prisons on solitary confinement, the practice of locking prisoners alone in cells for 22 or more hours a day over a period of months, years or even decades. In the last two years, an increasing number of states, prodded by lawsuits, lower budgets and public opinion, have been rethinking the policy.

Tom Clements, Colorado’s previous executive director of corrections, was convinced that many inmates in segregation cells — Colorado made extensive use of solitary confinement — did not need to be there. He was particularly worried about the state’s habit of releasing some prisoners from long-term isolation directly onto the streets, with no transition. Mr. Clements’s killer, Evan S. Ebel, who died in a shootout later with the police, was one such prisoner.

To Mr. Raemisch, who was secretary of corrections in Wisconsin until newly elected Gov. Scott Walker moved him out of the post in 2011, the potential negative effects seemed obvious.

Continue reading the main story

“You don’t have to spend much time in a prison talking to someone in a segregation cell to realize that something is inherently wrong with that,” he said, sitting one recent afternoon in his office in Colorado Springs, where photographs show him as a young narcotics detective standing next to giant marijuana plants and with a mountain lion he bagged on a hunting trip in Idaho. “Everything you know about treating human beings, that’s not the way to do it.”

By the time he died, Mr. Clements had cut the number of inmates in solitary confinement in half, to 726 from about 1,500. Mr. Raemisch has decreased that number to 577, and has moved all but a few inmates with serious mental illnesses into other settings.

But when Mr. Raemisch arrived in July, the Corrections Department, which runs 20 prisons for about 20,000 inmates, was itself in lockdown, the executive staff was in disarray and many of the programs initiated by Mr. Clements had been halted.

Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, who said he was impressed by Mr. Raemisch’s law enforcement background and by his determination to proceed slowly and with a constant eye to safety, asked him to pick up where Mr. Clements had left off.

“I was looking for someone who would not just carry it on but get it done,” Mr. Hickenlooper said. “In your life, you only get so many people that are the right person at exactly the right time.”

Compact and barrel-chested, at home in sports jackets and striped T-shirts, Mr. Raemisch looks more like the cop he once was — he spent years as a deputy sheriff, a prosecutor and an elected sheriff before entering corrections — than the head of the state’s largest agency. Soft-spoken and cautious, a self-described “meat and potatoes man” who distrusts adventurous cuisine, he is prone to self-deprecation: At parties, he said, people head the other way when they hear what he does for a living. “Nobody wants to talk,” he said.

Before coming to Colorado, he had spent his entire life in Wisconsin, where his family has century-old roots; a plaque at Madison’s municipal airport commemorates his father, a longtime county board supervisor.

Mr. Raemisch’s staff members have gotten used to his directness, and to his sudden silences. “When he’s quiet, that’s when he’s at his best, because his wheels are turning,” said Kellie Wasko, his deputy.

Like Mr. Clements, Mr. Raemisch emphasizes that 97 percent of inmates will eventually be released.

“First and foremost, you have to understand that they’re going back, and it’s our job to get them prepared and determined to be law-abiding citizens when they go back,” he said. “I don’t want any new victims. That’s what drives me.”

But he has also pushed into territory where few others in his position have ventured. A memo sent to corrections staff this month described an ambitious agenda for the coming months, including allowing death row prisoners out of their cells for four hours a day and sending inmates to solitary confinement for specific lengths of time instead of indefinite periods. “They should know when they’re coming out,” Mr. Raemisch said.

He hopes to go further, making changes in the training of corrections officers, the preparation inmates receive before they are released and the way that corrections officers interact with inmates.

In Wisconsin, Mr. Raemisch’s views sometimes put him at odds with critics who accused him of being soft on crime. An early-release program he started there was called “catch and release” and “hug a thug” by some legislators.

But by that point in his career, the absolutes he saw as a young law enforcement officer had faded into more complex realities, he said. He had observed the criminal justice system from many angles, chasing down cocaine dealers on the streets of Madison, interviewing rape victims and seeing inmates in the county jail “sleeping on the floor, doing nothing all day long, in a system they couldn’t get out of.”

After a while, you realize that you spend most of your life in gray,” he said. “Or at least if you’re smart, you do.”

Now, Mr. Raemisch said, he favors anything that helps to rehabilitate inmates and decrease the chances that they will commit further crimes when they get out.

“If it works, we better be doing it,” he said. “We’re already doing things that don’t work.”

He was at his home in Wisconsin last March, preparing to go to work at Madison College, where he had taken a job as a dean after leaving state government, when he heard that Mr. Clements had been killed.

“It made me angry,” he said. “His purpose was really to help inmates, and to be killed by an inmate — it was just insulting to me.”

His predecessor’s violent death continues to shadow him. Having received death threats days after arriving in Colorado, he travels with a security detail and carries a gun on planes. His family has had to adjust to coexisting with bodyguards, a development his younger daughter is not entirely happy about.

“It’s pretty hard to form relationships when there’s guys with guns following you,” he said.

Advocates for crime victims worry that Mr. Raemisch is moving too fast and that public safety could be jeopardized. Prisoner advocacy groups complain that he is moving too slowly: Some inmates with mental illnesses, they say, are still kept in cells 22 hours a day without adequate treatment.

Mr. Raemisch said he was trying to find a balance between the two poles, stressing his concern for safety and reminding his critics that large bureaucracies move slowly.

“It’s a work in progress,” he said.

In Wisconsin, the thought of spending a night in a segregation cell never crossed his mind, Mr. Raemisch said, but in Colorado, it grew on him. He called Ms. Wasko on a Tuesday night to float the idea and was met with dead silence. “Hello, are you there?” he asked.

Ms. Wasko later said her first thought was “Why?” and her second, “I won’t bury another executive director.”

“Tom was inside his house” when he was killed, she said, referring to Mr. Clements. “Anything can happen under the roof of a prison.”

Mr. Raemisch said he was surprised that his day in solitary confinement had received so much notice.

“It was 20 hours,” he said. “If it would have been maybe even two days or a week, I would think, ‘Yeah, that would probably get someone’s attention.’ I might walk out stark raving mad, but it would get somebody’s attention.”

Prison Clamps Down Following Colorado Prison Chief's Murder

The Denver Post

One year after a parolee killed state prisons director Tom Clements, life behind bars — and beyond — is far different for Colorado convicts. After years of declining prison populations — reductions that Clements had trumpeted — the number of inmates has risen in the past year as a direct result of his slaying.
Among the factors:

• The Colorado Parole Board granted an average of 24 fewer discretionary paroles per month, an 8 percent decrease.
• Authorities cracked down on technical violations by parolees. The parole board, acting on recommendations of parole officers, increased by 37 parolees a month, or 14 percent, the number it sent back to prison for rule violations such as missing curfews and drinking beer.
• The newly formed Fugitive Apprehension Unit has also rounded up 415 parole absconders across the state, including one who was particularly difficult to find because he was living in Quartzsite, Ariz., as a woman the past six years.

The nine-member team has tracked down offenders hiding across the country, from Alaska to Florida.
Prison officials have sharply reduced the number of inmates being held in solitary confinement, also known as administrative segregation, where Evan Ebel, the parolee who killed Clements,

Read more: Prison system clamps down following Colorado prison chief's murder - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25353091/prison-system-clamps-down-following-colorado-prison-chiefs#ixzz2w89Q8gh7
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NPR: Colorado's prisons chief wants to limit solitary confinement

NPR

Colorado's prisons chief wants to limit solitary confinement

By Andrea Dukakis Mar 14, 2014 Listen

New Department of Corrections head Rick Raemisch vows to continue efforts to reform the prison system initiated by the late Tom Clements.

Read More

- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/tags/solitary-confinement#.dpuf

Interview with Rick Raemisch on limiting solitary confinement

It’s been nearly a year since Tom Clements, then the head of Colorado’s prisons, was murdered, allegedly by a former inmate. Rick Raemisch, the man who succeeded Clements, is determined to continue efforts Clements started to reform the prison system.

As head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements began reducing the number of inmates in solitary confinement. He started that work shortly after he began the job in 2011, and during his tenure, the number of inmates housed in solitary confinement dropped 50 percent, from a high of about 1,500 inmates.

Since Raemisch took the job last summer, he’s further reduced the numbers. Today, less than 600 inmates are in administrative segregation, the technical term for solitary confinement.

Raemisch received national attention recently for an opinion piece he wrote in the New York Times about spending a night in an administrative segregation cell. He says he did it to get a sense of what the experience was like for inmates.

Raemisch says while the 20 hours he spent in the cell were nothing compared to what inmates spend, he was surprised at the effect it had on him. For example, he says he felt paronoid and lost track of time.

“It didn’t take long before I felt like I had absolutely run out of things to do, which was nothing. There was nothing to do,” Raemisch says. “So, you find yourself gravitating towards the small window in the steel door and look out and see if you can see anything.”

Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours alone in a cell each day. They have an hour a day to shower and exercise in a neighboring cell. Meals are given to them through a slot in the door and they have little outside contact.

Raemisch says he hopes to continue reducing the number of inmates in administrative segregation by moving mentally ill inmates into treatment and easing others into the prison’s general population. When asked how many inmates will remain in administrative segregation, Raemish says he isn’t sure.

“Well, ideally it should be zero,” Raemisch says. "Is that possible? You know, I don’t think so.”

Raemish says he fears there will always be a small number of inmates who are too dangerous to live in the general prison population. Or, he says, if they weren’t extremely dangerous before they were put in administrative segregation, the experience could make them that way.

That could have been the case for the man who murdered Clements. Evan Ebel, who was on parole at the time of the murder, spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement. Ebel allegedly shot the former prisons chief at his home in Monument, Colo., south of Denver. He was later killed in a shootout with police in Texas.

Ebel had been out of prison for just a couple of months when he allegedly killed Clements. Before the incident, he had complained about the damaging effects of isolation and his father, a Boulder attorney, had testified before the state legislature about his concerns that solitary confinement had harmed his son's mental state.  

Given what happened to his predecessor, Raemisch has a full-time security detail to ensure his safety. He says a lot of people ask him why he decided to take the job. 

“This sounds corny but to me it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time,” Raemisch says. “Like I’m supposed to be here.”

And for this week, at least, Raemisch says he plans to stick around. 

- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-prisons-chief-wants-limit-solitary-confinement#.dpuf

By Andrea Dukakis Mar 14, 2014

Listen

Audio: Rick Raemisch speaks with Ryan Warner

Inmates in solitary confinement in Colorado have one hour a day to exercise in a small enclosed space and take a shower. They spend the remaining 23 hours alone in their cells.

(Photo: Courtesy of Brittany Glidden)

It’s been nearly a year since Tom Clements, then the head of Colorado’s prisons, was murdered, allegedly by a former inmate. Rick Raemisch, the man who succeeded Clements, is determined to continue efforts Clements started to reform the prison system.

As head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements began reducing the number of inmates in solitary confinement. He started that work shortly after he began the job in 2011, and during his tenure, the number of inmates housed in solitary confinement dropped 50 percent, from a high of about 1,500 inmates.

Since Raemisch took the job last summer, he’s further reduced the numbers. Today, less than 600 inmates are in administrative segregation, the technical term for solitary confinement.

Raemisch received national attention recently for an opinion piece he wrote in the New York Times about spending a night in an administrative segregation cell. He says he did it to get a sense of what the experience was like for inmates.

Raemisch says while the 20 hours he spent in the cell were nothing compared to what inmates spend, he was surprised at the effect it had on him. For example, he says he felt paronoid and lost track of time.

“It didn’t take long before I felt like I had absolutely run out of things to do, which was nothing. There was nothing to do,” Raemisch says. “So, you find yourself gravitating towards the small window in the steel door and look out and see if you can see anything.”

Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours alone in a cell each day. They have an hour a day to shower and exercise in a neighboring cell. Meals are given to them through a slot in the door and they have little outside contact.

Raemisch says he hopes to continue reducing the number of inmates in administrative segregation by moving mentally ill inmates into treatment and easing others into the prison’s general population. When asked how many inmates will remain in administrative segregation, Raemish says he isn’t sure.

“Well, ideally it should be zero,” Raemisch says. "Is that possible? You know, I don’t think so.”

Raemish says he fears there will always be a small number of inmates who are too dangerous to live in the general prison population. Or, he says, if they weren’t extremely dangerous before they were put in administrative segregation, the experience could make them that way.

That could have been the case for the man who murdered Clements. Evan Ebel, who was on parole at the time of the murder, spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement. Ebel allegedly shot the former prisons chief at his home in Monument, Colo., south of Denver. He was later killed in a shootout with police in Texas.

Ebel had been out of prison for just a couple of months when he allegedly killed Clements. Before the incident, he had complained about the damaging effects of isolation and his father, a Boulder attorney, had testified before the state legislature about his concerns that solitary confinement had harmed his son's mental state.  

Given what happened to his predecessor, Raemisch has a full-time security detail to ensure his safety. He says a lot of people ask him why he decided to take the job. 

“This sounds corny but to me it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time,” Raemisch says. “Like I’m supposed to be here.”

And for this week, at least, Raemisch says he plans to stick around. 

- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-prisons-chief-wants-limit-solitary-confinement#.dpuf

It’s been nearly a year since Tom Clements, then the head of Colorado’s prisons, was murdered, allegedly by a former inmate. Rick Raemisch, the man who succeeded Clements, is determined to continue efforts Clements started to reform the prison system.

As head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements began reducing the number of inmates in solitary confinement. He started that work shortly after he began the job in 2011, and during his tenure, the number of inmates housed in solitary confinement dropped 50 percent, from a high of about 1,500 inmates.

Since Raemisch took the job last summer, he’s further reduced the numbers. Today, less than 600 inmates are in administrative segregation, the technical term for solitary confinement.

Raemisch received national attention recently for an opinion piece he wrote in the New York Times about spending a night in an administrative segregation cell. He says he did it to get a sense of what the experience was like for inmates.

Raemisch says while the 20 hours he spent in the cell were nothing compared to what inmates spend, he was surprised at the effect it had on him. For example, he says he felt paronoid and lost track of time.

“It didn’t take long before I felt like I had absolutely run out of things to do, which was nothing. There was nothing to do,” Raemisch says. “So, you find yourself gravitating towards the small window in the steel door and look out and see if you can see anything.”

Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours alone in a cell each day. They have an hour a day to shower and exercise in a neighboring cell. Meals are given to them through a slot in the door and they have little outside contact.

Raemisch says he hopes to continue reducing the number of inmates in administrative segregation by moving mentally ill inmates into treatment and easing others into the prison’s general population. When asked how many inmates will remain in administrative segregation, Raemish says he isn’t sure.

“Well, ideally it should be zero,” Raemisch says. "Is that possible? You know, I don’t think so.”

Raemish says he fears there will always be a small number of inmates who are too dangerous to live in the general prison population. Or, he says, if they weren’t extremely dangerous before they were put in administrative segregation, the experience could make them that way.

That could have been the case for the man who murdered Clements. Evan Ebel, who was on parole at the time of the murder, spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement. Ebel allegedly shot the former prisons chief at his home in Monument, Colo., south of Denver. He was later killed in a shootout with police in Texas.

Ebel had been out of prison for just a couple of months when he allegedly killed Clements. Before the incident, he had complained about the damaging effects of isolation and his father, a Boulder attorney, had testified before the state legislature about his concerns that solitary confinement had harmed his son's mental state.  

Given what happened to his predecessor, Raemisch has a full-time security detail to ensure his safety. He says a lot of people ask him why he decided to take the job. 

“This sounds corny but to me it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time,” Raemisch says. “Like I’m supposed to be here.”

And for this week, at least, Raemisch says he plans to stick around. 

Solitary Confinementprisons

     

News Now

All Things Considered

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- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-prisons-chief-wants-limit-solitary-confinement#.dpuf

It’s been nearly a year since Tom Clements, then the head of Colorado’s prisons, was murdered, allegedly by a former inmate. Rick Raemisch, the man who succeeded Clements, is determined to continue efforts Clements started to reform the prison system.

As head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements began reducing the number of inmates in solitary confinement. He started that work shortly after he began the job in 2011, and during his tenure, the number of inmates housed in solitary confinement dropped 50 percent, from a high of about 1,500 inmates.

Since Raemisch took the job last summer, he’s further reduced the numbers. Today, less than 600 inmates are in administrative segregation, the technical term for solitary confinement.

Raemisch received national attention recently for an opinion piece he wrote in the New York Times about spending a night in an administrative segregation cell. He says he did it to get a sense of what the experience was like for inmates.

Raemisch says while the 20 hours he spent in the cell were nothing compared to what inmates spend, he was surprised at the effect it had on him. For example, he says he felt paronoid and lost track of time.

“It didn’t take long before I felt like I had absolutely run out of things to do, which was nothing. There was nothing to do,” Raemisch says. “So, you find yourself gravitating towards the small window in the steel door and look out and see if you can see anything.”

Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours alone in a cell each day. They have an hour a day to shower and exercise in a neighboring cell. Meals are given to them through a slot in the door and they have little outside contact.

Raemisch says he hopes to continue reducing the number of inmates in administrative segregation by moving mentally ill inmates into treatment and easing others into the prison’s general population. When asked how many inmates will remain in administrative segregation, Raemish says he isn’t sure.

“Well, ideally it should be zero,” Raemisch says. "Is that possible? You know, I don’t think so.”

Raemish says he fears there will always be a small number of inmates who are too dangerous to live in the general prison population. Or, he says, if they weren’t extremely dangerous before they were put in administrative segregation, the experience could make them that way.

That could have been the case for the man who murdered Clements. Evan Ebel, who was on parole at the time of the murder, spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement. Ebel allegedly shot the former prisons chief at his home in Monument, Colo., south of Denver. He was later killed in a shootout with police in Texas.

Ebel had been out of prison for just a couple of months when he allegedly killed Clements. Before the incident, he had complained about the damaging effects of isolation and his father, a Boulder attorney, had testified before the state legislature about his concerns that solitary confinement had harmed his son's mental state.  

Given what happened to his predecessor, Raemisch has a full-time security detail to ensure his safety. He says a lot of people ask him why he decided to take the job. 

“This sounds corny but to me it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time,” Raemisch says. “Like I’m supposed to be here.”

And for this week, at least, Raemisch says he plans to stick around. 

Solitary Confinementprisons

     

News Now

All Things Considered

• Listen
• Schedule

- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-prisons-chief-wants-limit-solitary-confinement#.dpuf

It’s been nearly a year since Tom Clements, then the head of Colorado’s prisons, was murdered, allegedly by a former inmate. Rick Raemisch, the man who succeeded Clements, is determined to continue efforts Clements started to reform the prison system.

As head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements began reducing the number of inmates in solitary confinement. He started that work shortly after he began the job in 2011, and during his tenure, the number of inmates housed in solitary confinement dropped 50 percent, from a high of about 1,500 inmates.

Since Raemisch took the job last summer, he’s further reduced the numbers. Today, less than 600 inmates are in administrative segregation, the technical term for solitary confinement.

Raemisch received national attention recently for an opinion piece he wrote in the New York Times about spending a night in an administrative segregation cell. He says he did it to get a sense of what the experience was like for inmates.

Raemisch says while the 20 hours he spent in the cell were nothing compared to what inmates spend, he was surprised at the effect it had on him. For example, he says he felt paronoid and lost track of time.

“It didn’t take long before I felt like I had absolutely run out of things to do, which was nothing. There was nothing to do,” Raemisch says. “So, you find yourself gravitating towards the small window in the steel door and look out and see if you can see anything.”

Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours alone in a cell each day. They have an hour a day to shower and exercise in a neighboring cell. Meals are given to them through a slot in the door and they have little outside contact.

Raemisch says he hopes to continue reducing the number of inmates in administrative segregation by moving mentally ill inmates into treatment and easing others into the prison’s general population. When asked how many inmates will remain in administrative segregation, Raemish says he isn’t sure.

“Well, ideally it should be zero,” Raemisch says. "Is that possible? You know, I don’t think so.”

Raemish says he fears there will always be a small number of inmates who are too dangerous to live in the general prison population. Or, he says, if they weren’t extremely dangerous before they were put in administrative segregation, the experience could make them that way.

That could have been the case for the man who murdered Clements. Evan Ebel, who was on parole at the time of the murder, spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement. Ebel allegedly shot the former prisons chief at his home in Monument, Colo., south of Denver. He was later killed in a shootout with police in Texas.

Ebel had been out of prison for just a couple of months when he allegedly killed Clements. Before the incident, he had complained about the damaging effects of isolation and his father, a Boulder attorney, had testified before the state legislature about his concerns that solitary confinement had harmed his son's mental state.  

Given what happened to his predecessor, Raemisch has a full-time security detail to ensure his safety. He says a lot of people ask him why he decided to take the job. 

“This sounds corny but to me it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time,” Raemisch says. “Like I’m supposed to be here.”

And for this week, at least, Raemisch says he plans to stick around. 

- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-prisons-chief-wants-limit-solitary-confinement#.dpuf

It’s been nearly a year since Tom Clements, then the head of Colorado’s prisons, was murdered, allegedly by a former inmate. Rick Raemisch, the man who succeeded Clements, is determined to continue efforts Clements started to reform the prison system.

As head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements began reducing the number of inmates in solitary confinement. He started that work shortly after he began the job in 2011, and during his tenure, the number of inmates housed in solitary confinement dropped 50 percent, from a high of about 1,500 inmates.

Since Raemisch took the job last summer, he’s further reduced the numbers. Today, less than 600 inmates are in administrative segregation, the technical term for solitary confinement.

Raemisch received national attention recently for an opinion piece he wrote in the New York Times about spending a night in an administrative segregation cell. He says he did it to get a sense of what the experience was like for inmates.

Raemisch says while the 20 hours he spent in the cell were nothing compared to what inmates spend, he was surprised at the effect it had on him. For example, he says he felt paronoid and lost track of time.

“It didn’t take long before I felt like I had absolutely run out of things to do, which was nothing. There was nothing to do,” Raemisch says. “So, you find yourself gravitating towards the small window in the steel door and look out and see if you can see anything.”

Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours alone in a cell each day. They have an hour a day to shower and exercise in a neighboring cell. Meals are given to them through a slot in the door and they have little outside contact.

Raemisch says he hopes to continue reducing the number of inmates in administrative segregation by moving mentally ill inmates into treatment and easing others into the prison’s general population. When asked how many inmates will remain in administrative segregation, Raemish says he isn’t sure.

“Well, ideally it should be zero,” Raemisch says. "Is that possible? You know, I don’t think so.”

Raemish says he fears there will always be a small number of inmates who are too dangerous to live in the general prison population. Or, he says, if they weren’t extremely dangerous before they were put in administrative segregation, the experience could make them that way.

That could have been the case for the man who murdered Clements. Evan Ebel, who was on parole at the time of the murder, spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement. Ebel allegedly shot the former prisons chief at his home in Monument, Colo., south of Denver. He was later killed in a shootout with police in Texas.

Ebel had been out of prison for just a couple of months when he allegedly killed Clements. Before the incident, he had complained about the damaging effects of isolation and his father, a Boulder attorney, had testified before the state legislature about his concerns that solitary confinement had harmed his son's mental state.  

Given what happened to his predecessor, Raemisch has a full-time security detail to ensure his safety. He says a lot of people ask him why he decided to take the job. 

“This sounds corny but to me it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time,” Raemisch says. “Like I’m supposed to be here.”

And for this week, at least, Raemisch says he plans to stick around. 

- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-prisons-chief-wants-limit-solitary-confinement#.dpuf

It’s been nearly a year since Tom Clements, then the head of Colorado’s prisons, was murdered, allegedly by a former inmate. Rick Raemisch, the man who succeeded Clements, is determined to continue efforts Clements started to reform the prison system.

As head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements began reducing the number of inmates in solitary confinement. He started that work shortly after he began the job in 2011, and during his tenure, the number of inmates housed in solitary confinement dropped 50 percent, from a high of about 1,500 inmates.

Since Raemisch took the job last summer, he’s further reduced the numbers. Today, less than 600 inmates are in administrative segregation, the technical term for solitary confinement.

Raemisch received national attention recently for an opinion piece he wrote in the New York Times about spending a night in an administrative segregation cell. He says he did it to get a sense of what the experience was like for inmates.

Raemisch says while the 20 hours he spent in the cell were nothing compared to what inmates spend, he was surprised at the effect it had on him. For example, he says he felt paronoid and lost track of time.

“It didn’t take long before I felt like I had absolutely run out of things to do, which was nothing. There was nothing to do,” Raemisch says. “So, you find yourself gravitating towards the small window in the steel door and look out and see if you can see anything.”

Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours alone in a cell each day. They have an hour a day to shower and exercise in a neighboring cell. Meals are given to them through a slot in the door and they have little outside contact.

Raemisch says he hopes to continue reducing the number of inmates in administrative segregation by moving mentally ill inmates into treatment and easing others into the prison’s general population. When asked how many inmates will remain in administrative segregation, Raemish says he isn’t sure.

“Well, ideally it should be zero,” Raemisch says. "Is that possible? You know, I don’t think so.”

Raemish says he fears there will always be a small number of inmates who are too dangerous to live in the general prison population. Or, he says, if they weren’t extremely dangerous before they were put in administrative segregation, the experience could make them that way.

That could have been the case for the man who murdered Clements. Evan Ebel, who was on parole at the time of the murder, spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement. Ebel allegedly shot the former prisons chief at his home in Monument, Colo., south of Denver. He was later killed in a shootout with police in Texas.

Ebel had been out of prison for just a couple of months when he allegedly killed Clements. Before the incident, he had complained about the damaging effects of isolation and his father, a Boulder attorney, had testified before the state legislature about his concerns that solitary confinement had harmed his son's mental state.  

Given what happened to his predecessor, Raemisch has a full-time security detail to ensure his safety. He says a lot of people ask him why he decided to take the job. 

“This sounds corny but to me it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time,” Raemisch says. “Like I’m supposed to be here.”

And for this week, at least, Raemisch says he plans to stick around. 

- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-prisons-chief-wants-limit-solitary-confinement#.dpuf

It’s been nearly a year since Tom Clements, then the head of Colorado’s prisons, was murdered, allegedly by a former inmate. Rick Raemisch, the man who succeeded Clements, is determined to continue efforts Clements started to reform the prison system.

As head of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements began reducing the number of inmates in solitary confinement. He started that work shortly after he began the job in 2011, and during his tenure, the number of inmates housed in solitary confinement dropped 50 percent, from a high of about 1,500 inmates.

Since Raemisch took the job last summer, he’s further reduced the numbers. Today, less than 600 inmates are in administrative segregation, the technical term for solitary confinement.

Raemisch received national attention recently for an opinion piece he wrote in the New York Times about spending a night in an administrative segregation cell. He says he did it to get a sense of what the experience was like for inmates.

Raemisch says while the 20 hours he spent in the cell were nothing compared to what inmates spend, he was surprised at the effect it had on him. For example, he says he felt paronoid and lost track of time.

“It didn’t take long before I felt like I had absolutely run out of things to do, which was nothing. There was nothing to do,” Raemisch says. “So, you find yourself gravitating towards the small window in the steel door and look out and see if you can see anything.”

Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours alone in a cell each day. They have an hour a day to shower and exercise in a neighboring cell. Meals are given to them through a slot in the door and they have little outside contact.

Raemisch says he hopes to continue reducing the number of inmates in administrative segregation by moving mentally ill inmates into treatment and easing others into the prison’s general population. When asked how many inmates will remain in administrative segregation, Raemish says he isn’t sure.

“Well, ideally it should be zero,” Raemisch says. "Is that possible? You know, I don’t think so.”

Raemish says he fears there will always be a small number of inmates who are too dangerous to live in the general prison population. Or, he says, if they weren’t extremely dangerous before they were put in administrative segregation, the experience could make them that way.

That could have been the case for the man who murdered Clements. Evan Ebel, who was on parole at the time of the murder, spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement. Ebel allegedly shot the former prisons chief at his home in Monument, Colo., south of Denver. He was later killed in a shootout with police in Texas.

Ebel had been out of prison for just a couple of months when he allegedly killed Clements. Before the incident, he had complained about the damaging effects of isolation and his father, a Boulder attorney, had testified before the state legislature about his concerns that solitary confinement had harmed his son's mental state.  

Given what happened to his predecessor, Raemisch has a full-time security detail to ensure his safety. He says a lot of people ask him why he decided to take the job. 

“This sounds corny but to me it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time,” Raemisch says. “Like I’m supposed to be here.”

And for this week, at least, Raemisch says he plans to stick around. 

- See more at: http://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-prisons-chief-wants-limit-solitary-confinement#.dpuf

The Archipelago of Pain | Opinion | The Seattle Times

The Archipelago of Pain | Opinion | The Seattle Times

We don’t flog people in our prison system, or put them in thumbscrews
or stretch them on the rack. We do, however, lock prisoners away in
social isolation for 23 hours a day, often for months, years or decades
at a time.


We prohibit the former and permit the latter because we make a
distinction between physical and social pain. But, at the level of the
brain where pain resides, this is a distinction without a difference.
Matthew Lieberman of the University of California, Los Angeles, compared
the brain activities of people suffering physical pain with people
suffering from social pain. As he writes in his book, “Social,” “Looking
at the screens side by side ... you wouldn’t have been able to tell the
difference.”


The brain processes both kinds of pain in similar ways. Moreover, at
the level of human experience, social pain is more traumatic, more
destabilizing and inflicts more cruel and long-lasting effects than
physical pain. What we’re doing to prisoners in extreme isolation is
arguably more inhumane than flogging.


Yet inflicting extreme social pain is more or less standard procedure
in America’s prisons. Something like 80,000 prisoners are put in
solitary confinement every year. Prisoners isolated in super-maximum
facilities are often locked away in a 6-foot by 9-foot or 8-foot by
10-foot barren room. They may be completely isolated in that room for
two days a week. For the remaining five, they may be locked away for 23
hours a day and permitted an hour of solitary exercise in a fenced-in
area.


If there is communication with the prison staff, it might take place
through an intercom. Communication with the world beyond is minimal. If
there are visitors, conversation may be conducted through a video
screen. Prisoners may go years without affectionately touching another
human being. Their only physical contact will be brushing up against a
guard as he puts on shackles for trips to the exercise yard.


In general, mammals do not do well in isolation. In the 1950s, Harry
Harlow studied monkeys who had been isolated. The ones who were isolated
for longer periods went into emotional shock, rocking back and forth.
One in six refused to eat after being reintegrated and died within five
days. Most of the rest were permanently withdrawn.


Studies on birds, rats and mice consistently show isolated animals
suffer from impoverished neural growth compared with socially engaged
animals, especially in areas where short-term memory and threat
perception are processed. Studies on Yugoslav prisoners of war in 1992
found those who had suffered blunt blows to the head and those who had
been socially isolated suffered the greatest damage to brain
functioning.


Some prisoners who’ve been in solitary confinement are scarcely
affected by it. But this is not typical. The majority of prisoners in
solitary suffer severely — from headaches, an oversensitivity to
stimuli, digestion problems, loss of appetite, self-mutilation, chronic
dizziness, loss of the ability to concentrate, hallucinations, illusions
or paranoid ideas.


The psychiatrist Stuart Grassian conducted in-depth interviews with
more than 200 prisoners in solitary and concluded that about a third
developed acute psychosis with hallucinations. According to rough
estimates, as many as half the suicides in prison take place in
solitary, even though isolated prisoners make up only about 5 percent of
the population.


Prison officials argue that they need isolation to preserve order.
But the research on the effectiveness of solitary confinement programs
is ambiguous at best. There’s a fair bit of evidence to suggest that
prison violence is not produced mainly by a few bad individuals who can
be removed from the mainstream. Rather, violence is caused by conditions
and prison culture. If there’s crowding, a culture of violence, and
anarchic or arbitrary power, the context itself is going to create
violence no matter how many “bad seeds” are segregated away.


Fortunately, we seem to be at a moment when public opinion is
turning. Last month, the executive director of the Colorado prisons,
Rick Raemisch, wrote a moving first-person Op-Ed article in The Times
about his short, voluntary stay in solitary. Colorado will no longer
send prisoners with severe mental illnesses into solitary. New York
officials recently agreed to new guidelines limiting the time prisoners
can spend in isolation. Before long, one suspects, extreme isolation
will be unacceptable.


The larger point is we need to obliterate the assumption that inflicting social pain is OK because it’s not real pain.


When you put people in prison, you are imposing pain on them. But
that doesn’t mean you have to gouge out the nourishment that humans need
for health, which is social, emotional and relational.



© , New York Times News Service


David Brooks is a regular columnist for The New York Times.

Experts: Officials missed signs of prescription drug crackdown’s effect on heroin use

.washington post

By Jerry Markon and Alice Crites, Published: March 6

From the beginning, the U.S. government’s decade-long crackdown on prescription drug abuse has run an unsettling risk: that arresting doctors and shuttering “pill mills” would inadvertently fuel a new epidemic of heroin use.
State and federal officials have pressed their campaign against prescription drug abuse with urgency, trying to contain a scourge that kills more than 16,000 people each year. The crackdown has helped reduce the illegal use of some medications and raised awareness of their dangers.
But at the same time that some pain medications have become less available on the street and pricier, many users have switched to cheaper heroin, since prescription pills and heroin are in the same class of drugs and provide a comparable, euphoric high.
With the nationwide heroin problem gaining greater attention after the recent death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman from heroin and other drugs, experts on addiction say the government’s actions contributed to the problem it is now confronting. The war on drugs, they say, is an unwieldy conflict where targeting one illicit substance can be an unintentional boon to another.
“Absolutely, much of the heroin use you’re seeing now is due in large part to making prescription opioids a lot less accessible,’’ said Theodore Cicero, a psychiatry professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He co-authored a 2012 study, cited in the New England Journal of Medicine, that found that a reformulation of OxyContin to make it harder to abuse caused heroin use to nearly double.
Although policymakers “did the best they could at the time” in fighting prescription drugs, Cicero said, “there were signs years ago that this was going to happen, and there was just a lot of inaction.” He said the government could have acted sooner to mitigate heroin’s toll, such as by promoting the use of medicines to fight overdoses and ease withdrawal symptoms.
The government itself predicted that targeting prescription drugs could give heroin use an unintended lift. The Justice Department’s drug intelligence arm in 2002 highlighted the potential consequences: “As initiatives taken to curb the abuse of OxyContin are successfully implemented, abusers of OxyContin . . . also may begin to use heroin, especially if it is readily available, pure, and relatively inexpensive.’’
A long-emerging trend
Yet those projections did not factor into discussions by top drug policy officials, even after numerous government reports and congressional testimony indicated that the shift to heroin was happening, according to current and former federal officials. Heroin use began to rise at the end of the Bush administration and has surged in the Obama years.
John Walters, who ran the Office of National Drug Control Policy as President George W. Bush’s “drug czar,’’ said he doesn’t recall “anyone raising’” the prescription drugs-heroin link, though the reports warning of the link were screened by people in his office. “The heroin problem was getting better, and the real issue was the growth of pharmaceuticals,” he said.
Gil Kerlikowske, who took over as President Obama’s drug czar in 2009, said the connection between prescription drugs and heroin “was not on the radar screen” during most of Obama’s first term and that he “didn’t do everything I should have” to raise awareness of the growing heroin problem. Now, he said, heroin is a “much larger concern.”
Between 2007 and 2012, heroin use rose 79 percent nationwide, according to federal data. Within the same period, the data show, 81 percent of first-time heroin users had previously abused prescription drugs.
The likelihood that many prescription-drug abusers will switch to heroin because it is much cheaper is widely accepted among addiction treatment professionals and law enforcement officials.
Justice Department officials reject any direct linkage between the crackdown on prescription drugs and rising heroin use, although it was a Justice Department unit — the National Drug Intelligence Center — that warned that the campaign against illegal use of prescription drugs was fueling heroin use. The center, which closed in 2012, was separate from the unit employing prosecutors and agents who fight drug use.
Moreover, these officials defended their fight against prescription drug abuse, saying those efforts prevented numerous overdose deaths. Even with heroin use on the rise, they said in interviews, it still represents a much smaller problem than prescription medications. Heroin kills about 3,000 people a year, less than a fifth of the toll from prescription drug abuse, government data show.
Connection disputed
Joseph T. Rannazzisi, who runs the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Diversion Control, denied that the spike in arrests for prescription drug misuse has affected their cost and driven users to heroin, saying street prices have been generally stable. “I don’t think one thing has anything to do with the other,’’ said Rannazzisi, who emphasized that the move against prescription pills saved many lives. The DEA is part of the Justice Department.
Tristram J. Coffin, the U.S. attorney for Vermont, who has been a leader in the battle against prescription drug abuse, also remains a staunch defender of that campaign. “Prescription drugs are incredibly addictive, incredibly lethal, and we had to deal with them,’’ he said.
But Coffin acknowledged that the crackdown made some doctors reluctant to write prescriptions for pain medications. “That in turn causes people, because they have an opioid dependency, to turn to heroin,’’ he said.
In 2010, Justice Department officials told The Washington Post that a federal probe of prescription drug abuse in Northern Virginia, the nation’s largest such investigation at the time, had caused black market OxyContin prices to nearly double. Police and addiction treatment professionals in three states said last week that actions such as closures of “pill mills” that dispensed massive amounts of pharmaceuticals had made them harder to get, raising their price as demand outpaced supply.
Still, “I can’t recall anyone at any point having a plan that would have limited the shift from prescription drugs to heroin,’’ said Marvin D. Seppala, chief medical officer at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, a network of drug treatment centers.
Warnings of heroin use
It was without controversy that the Food and Drug Administration approved OxyContin in 1995. The powerful drug was a godsend for millions of pain sufferers.
Within a few years, however, authorities learned that addicts were crushing the time-release tablets and snorting or injecting them, leading to property crimes and overdose deaths.
A crackdown began at the end of the Bill Clinton administration and escalated under the George W. Bush administration, which dispatched anti-drug agents and encouraged state monitoring programs that detect suspicious prescriptions. Federal arrests for illegal use of prescription drugs skyrocketed more than 900 percent between 2001 and 2007, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.
During the same period, federal heroin arrests fell 32 percent as heroin use was generally stable and even declined among adolescents, said the center’s reports, which cited DEA arrest data.
Bush administration officials said they targeted the more pressing threat. “Oxy was extremely accessible,’’ said Paul J. McNulty, a former U.S. attorney in Alexandria and deputy attorney general. “At the same time, many of us involved in drug policy from the 1980s onward saw heroin on the decline for a long period.”
Throughout the Bush administration and afterward, nearly every year between 2002 and 2011, the Justice Department’s drug intelligence arm warned that the crackdown could drive drug abusers to heroin.
As early as 2003, the center said, some Oxy users were already making the switch. “Not only is heroin less expensive, but efforts to control the diversion of OxyContin may be reducing the availability of OxyContin in some areas,’’ it wrote that year. The concerns were echoed in congressional testimony starting in 2008, transcripts show.
Michael F. Walther, the drug center’s former director, said the reports were read in advance by officials at the DEA and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
“It never crossed anyone’s mind that cracking down on Oxy would lead to an increase in heroin,’’ said one current federal official involved in anti-drug enforcement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

A new focus on heroin
When President Obama took office, his administration also tackled the epidemic in front of it. “Prescription drugs were much more of a priority” than heroin, said Timothy Condon, who was a senior science policy adviser in the the Office of National Drug Control Policy in 2010 and 2011.
As heroin use rose in recent years, the government began reacting. Since 2009, the DEA has widely circulated a slide called “circle of addiction” that shows the linkage between pain medications and heroin.
Heroin trafficking cases rose 52 percent between 2008 and 2012, federal data show. And the drug czar’s office, which has publicly warned about the link between prescription drugs and heroin for the past several years, has begun a number of anti-heroin initiatives. The administration supports the use of naloxone, an anti-overdose medicine, and drugs such as methadone that help ease heroin withdrawal.
There’s no missing the toll of heroin any more.
“Heroin is taking up a lot more of our attention and time,’’ said Kerlikowske, who said other measures targeting heroin are in the works.
Experts praised the recent steps but said they should have come much earlier. “The intent was good, but someone, somewhere, should have thought it through to say ‘now we’re going to have a flood of heroin overdoses,’ ’’ said Jim Takacs, executive director of the Licking County Alcoholism Prevention Program near Columbus, Ohio. He said the state’s recent crackdown on pill mills has driven the price of prescription medications “way up” and caused heroin abuse to spike.
“They should have known,’’ Takacs said.

States Change Approach to Heroin Amid Epedemic

Washington Post

A kit with naloxone, also known by its brand name Narcan, is displayed at the South Jersey AIDS Alliance in Atlantic City, N.J., on  Feb. 19, 2014. An overdose of opiates essentially makes the body forget to breathe. Naloxone works by blocking the brain receptors that opiates latch onto and helping the body “remember” to take in air. (Mel Evans/AP)

An alarming spike in heroin usage has left states scrambling to reduce the number of deaths caused by the powerful drug, a move that has lawmakers focusing increasingly on helping those who overdose rather than punishing them.
The jump in overdoses is alarming. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported about 669,000 Americans used heroin at least once in 2012, and nearly 3,100 died from overdoses in 2010 — a 55 percent increase from the previous year.
State Net Capitol Journal reporter Rich Ehisen takes a look at how states are reacting by trying to save lives in this month’s issue:

Law enforcement and other emergency responders say that many of these deaths could have been prevented if someone with the overdose victim would have simply got that person help. Usually that means calling 911 or taking the overdosed person to get medical attention. But it could also come in the form of giving that person the anti-overdose drug naloxone, which works to block opiates from the brain’s receptor cells. A 2012 report from the Centers for Disease Control says naloxone — usually sold under the brand name Narcan and which can be injected or applied via a nasal spray — has reversed more than 10,000 opiate overdoses since its introduction in 1996.
But many overdose victims never get that chance because fear of being arrested often supersedes a drug user’s willingness to call 911. And in many states, there is no assurance that even emergency responders will be carrying naloxone when they arrive.

In recent years, 17 states and the District of Columbia have adopted “Good Samaritan” laws, which grant some immunity to those who seek medical help for an overdose victim. Eighteen states and D.C. have also given first responders the ability to administer naloxone to overdose victims.
And the number of states seeking to get help for overdosers will expand in coming weeks: Legislation has advanced in Wisconsin, Tennessee, Ohio and Utah in just the past few months. Similar bills are before legislators in seven other states, Ehisen reported.

'White Men Getting Rich From Legal Weed Won't Help Those Harmed Most By Drug War'

Huffington Post

A lot has happened in the two years since the publication of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, a landmark book that showed how the “war on drugs” and the mass incarceration of black Americans has undermined much of the progress achieved by the civil rights movement.
States around the country have downsized their prison systems. Washington and Colorado legalized recreational marijuana for adults. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has promoted a less punitive approach to the prosecution of drug crimes.
And yet, in a press call on Thursday sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that advocates for the decriminalization of drugs, Alexander warned against complacency. She called for the U.S. to not just stop the war on drugs, but to pay “reparations” and give a public platform to the communities of color most harmed by the drug war.
“When I see images of people using marijuana and images of people who are now trying to run legitimate marijuana businesses, they’re almost all white," she said, noting she supports legalizing pot.
“After 40 years of impoverished black men getting prison time for selling weed, white men are planning to get rich doing the same things," she added. "So that’s why I think we have to start talking about reparations for the war on drugs. How do we repair the harms caused?"
She added that the government should pay reparation money to families that have been destroyed by the drug war. “You can’t just destroy a people and say, ‘It’s over, we’re stopping now,'” she said.
The United States incarcerates more than 2 million people, mostly for drug offenses. Blacks make up more than 40 percent of the prison population, despite comprising less than 15 percent of the U.S. population as a whole, according to U.S. Census data.
In recent years, states around the country, including conservative places like Texas and North Carolina, have slashed prison budgets by investing more heavily in less expensive alternatives to incarceration, like ankle bracelets that allow people to serve time at home and at centers that treat drug addiction.
“We see politicians across the spectrum raising concerns for the first time in 40 years about the size of our prison state,” said Alexander, “and yet I worry that so much of the dialogue is driven by financial concerns rather than genuine concern for the communities that have been most impacted and the families that have been destroyed” by aggressive anti-drug policies.
Unless “we have a real conversation” about the magnitude of the damage caused by the drug war, “we’re going to find ourselves, years from now, either having a slightly downsized system of mass incarceration that continues to hum along pretty well,” she said, "or some new system of racial and social control will have emerged again, because we have not learned the core lesson that our history is trying to teach us.”

How Obamacare May Lower the Prison Population More Than Any Reform in a Generation

How Obamacare May Lower the Prison Population More Than Any Reform in a Generation

While
many have focused on the individual mandate, and the online (and
glitchy) insurance exchanges, one of the most potentially impactful
elements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has
flown more or less under the radar. It may be the biggest piece of
prison reform the U.S. will see in this generation.

On
the face of it, there’s no direct connection between the ACA and what
experts refer to as the “justice-involved population.” There’s no
mention of prisons or jails or even crime in the language of the law.
However, in what proponents of the act are considering a happy public
policy accident, the ACA may inadvertently change the makeup of the U.S.
prison population by getting early help to those with mental health and
drug abuse issues, ultimately reducing recidivism rates and saving
states millions, if not billions, of dollars annually.

For
years, the prison population in the United States stayed more or less
the same, hovering between 150,000 and 200,000 total incarcerated in
either state or federal correctional facilities. In the early 1980s that
number began to skyrocket, and by 2010, 1.57 million Americans were
incarcerated.

There’s
very little argument why.  The “epidemic of incarceration over the last
four decades,” as Josiah Rich, a professor of medicine and epidemiology
at Brown University, and co-founder of The Center for Prisoner Health
and Human Rights at The Miriam Hospital, puts it, can be mostly
attributed to two diseases: addiction and mental illness. “The natural
history of these diseases, when not treated, leads to behaviors that, in
our society, result in incarceration,” Rich tells Newsweek.

History
backs Rich up. In 1980, the number of Americans incarcerated for
drug-related offenses was around 41,000. Then, in 1982, the country’s
“War on Drugs” officially commenced, and by 2011, that number had shot
up to 500,000. In conjunction with funding the front on drug users,
President Ronald Reagan defunded federal mental health programs,
dropping total mental health spending by over 30 percent.
As a result, many of the nation’s mentally ill lost what was
essentially their home and place of work, and many ended up on the
street.

Today, a good portion of those make their beds in prisons and jails. The last major study on mental health in prisons,
conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, found that 64 percent of
inmates in state and federal prisons met the criteria for mental
illness at the time of their booking or during the twelve months leading
up to their arrest. For comparison, the rate of mental disorders among
U.S. citizens stands at around 25 percent, according to the NIH. Sixty-nine percent of the country’s prison population was addicted to drugs or alcohol prior to incarceration.