The Denver Post
Nearly 90 Colorado prisoners with serious
mental illness were locked in solitary confinement this year — and
many had been there for at least four years — despite legal and expert
recommendations that prisons stop "warehousing" the mentally ill in
23-hour-a-day isolation.
An 18-month study by the ACLU of Colorado
also found the proportion of mentally ill prisoners held in solitary
confinement increased from 2011 to 2012, even as the state prison system
decreased the overall number of inmates in solitary.
Prisoners
with moderate to severe mental illness now make up the majority of those
in solitary, also called "administrative segregation," according to the
report, obtained by The Denver Post and to be released Tuesday. The 87
prisoners with serious mental illness in solitary have diseases
including schizophrenia and severe depression.
There were 684
prisoners in administrative segregation last year, or 3.9 percent of
the inmate population, according to the corrections department.
One
reason so many mentally ill inmates are in solitary is that the
Colorado prison system has a severe shortage of psychiatrists, falling
well short of national recommendations, according to the report.
"It
is clear that one of the Colorado Department of Corrections' methods of
managing the scores of mentally ill prisoners under its charge is to
confine them in administrative segregation," says the report, "Out of
Sight, Out of Mind."
CSP is full of mentally disturbed. 60% are on anti-depressants. We allocated $3M to hire, but DOC cannot find anyone to fill the positions. How sad.
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