Persons who are diagnosed as Chronically Mentally Ill and who violate the laws of the State of Alaska are subject to incarceration in the same jails and prisons housing prisoners who are not bi-polar, paranoia, schizophrenic or suffering from antisocial personality disorder, etc. These illnesses often rob those afflicted with them of stable realities and personalities, the ability to make reasoned choices, or understand the cause and effect of the outside forces that assail their minds and lives. Their conditions leave them exposed to predation by other prisoners, who feed upon their weaknesses. To abuse and neglect by those who are tasked with their care, yet who are ill-trained in, and sometimes psychologically unsuited for, the care of the mentally ill.
Understand from the outset that life in prison is structured around a disciplinary system that is dependent upon the ability to grant privileges, restrict activities, and increase or decrease the levels of confinement to control individual behaviors and maintain the secure operation of the facility. Now, imagine the effect imposing that controlling template or disciplinary process upon those who do not view or value the things or conditions of their environment in the same way as other prisoners (or staff). Whose emotions and personalities are subject to the vagaries of biochemical imbalances or physical deformations of the brain. For whom changes in activities, the enjoyment of privileges, or the level of their confinement are not always understood to be controllable or changeable through acts of their own volition.
Most of America's prison systems, including Alaska's, are based upon the "Punishment Model," a demonstrable failure for sane prisoners. With this in mind it should not come as any surprise that prisons and jails cannot possibly provide humane treatment for those who are mentally ill. Mentally ill prisoners require treatment and constant monitoring - treatment that sometimes devolves into merely controlling behaviors for the convenience of the staff, rather than for the purpose of achieving and maintaining psychological stability. In these circumstances, drugs serve as physical restraints and actual chains and fetters become implements of abusive and torturous punishments.
Introduced to Cell M-2 for the first time, Sean was new to Mike Module, the Mental Health Unit at the Cook Inlet pre-trial facility in Anchorage, Alaska. He was not new to mental illness. Diagnosed as bi-polar, hypomanic, and with sever antisocial personality disorder, he had been under psychiatric care for several months during his trial in Kenai, Alaska.
In this instance, Sean had refused to leave his cell to participate in an alcoholics anonymous program and as their verbal exchange escalated he had finally told Nurse Nancy Beaudoin, RN to "Fuck Off!" Punishment was M-2.
At that time, M-2 was empty of furnishings, save for a brushed-steel toilet/sink combination, a single eye-bolt in the floor and another in the wall. Sean was taken to that cell, injected with a massive dose of Thorazine, stripped of his clothing, except for briefs, and shackled by one foot to the floor and a wrist to the wall. His chains did not permit him to reach the sink or toilet, so he was forced to empty his bladder into a urinal for a staff member, who would then dump it into the toilet. Water was delivered in styrofoam cups with bagged meals that were pushed through the door slot.
Sean spent five days in that
cell, chained at foot and wrist, sleeping on the floor without
a mattress or a blanket. A few days after his release from M-2,
Sean was again ordered to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous program.
He refused.
Punishment: M-2.
This time around, Sean found
that the cell had been furnished with a wooden platform, set inches
from the floor, with a restraint at each corner and slots for
strapping the center of a body to the platform's surface. Sean
was injected with drugs, stripped to his underpants and strapped
to that board in spread-eagle fashion.
For the next three days he was turned over at approximately
four-hour intervals, provided no blanket or sheet, given water
in sips from a styrofoam cup, and permitted to urinate only into
a pitcher as a staff member held his penis to the opening. After
three days he was moved to a strip cell next door and for another
three days, though free from the 6-point restraints, was still
not permitted clothing, was fed cold meals in sacks pushed through
a slot in the door, and required to sleep on a concrete bunk without
mattress or blankets.
It was still not over for Sean. A few days after being allowed to leave the strip cell, he was again ordered to participate in Alcoholics anonymous, and again he refused to stand before a group of people he did not know and claim to be an alcoholic when he was not. Back to M-2 he went, and for another three days was injected with additional drugs, strapped onto that platform, turned every four hours, and deprived of clothing, blankets, or the basic decency of being allowed to urinate on his own.
Sean's treatment at the hands of Department of Corrections staff was/is, not unusual. He was not physically chained down because he posed a threat to staff or other prisoners or himself, nor because he was acting erratically, nor even for refusing his medication. Sean was chained down as punishment for refusing to program.
He was degraded, humiliated and abused for being disobedient, and it was no oversight on behalf of staff that his plight was witnessed by other mentally ill prisoners, who moved freely about the module and could see him through the glass window in M-2's front wall and sliding door.
Because Sean is mentally ill, he and others like him at Cook Inlet Pretrial Facility are punished without benefit of a disciplinary hearing or appeal. Indeed, although less able to fend for themselves and without special accommodation being made to assure that their legal rights are protected, mentally ill prisoners at Cook Inlet are routinely denied access to the Law Library of legal materials, (unless they are part of the prisoner's prescribed "program"). Grievances, Requests for Interview, (cop-outs), and even personal letters are reviewed for "appropriateness" and delivery refused, without appeal, at the discretion of Mental Health Unit staff.
Alaska's prisons are not equipped,
the staff is not adequately trained, and the operational processes
are not conducive to the humane care and treatment of the mentally
ill. Where mentally ill lawbreakers belong and what treatments
will facilitate their return to the community as productive citizens
are questions I am not qualified to say except this: Mentally
ill prisoners should not be in Alaska's jails or prisons. They
are not being humanely treated.
They are not being adequately cared for or protected. They are
subject to abuse and neglect.
Abuse
/ Neglect