8-10-2009 National:
FRANKLIN FURNACE, Ohio — The teenager in the padded smock sat in his solitary confinement cell here in this state’s most secure juvenile prison and screamed obscenities.
The youth, Donald, a 16-year-old, his eyes glassy from lack of sleep and a daily regimen of mood stabilizers, was serving a minimum of six months for breaking and entering. Although he had received diagnoses for psychiatric illnesses, including bipolar disorder, a judge decided that Donald would get better care in the state correctional system than he could get anywhere in his county.
That was two years ago.
Donald’s confinement has been repeatedly extended because of his violent outbursts. This year he assaulted a guard here at the prison, the Ohio River Valley Juvenile Correctional Facility, and was charged anew, with assault. His fists and forearms are striped with scars where he gouged himself with pencils and the bones of a bird he caught and dismembered.
As cash-starved states slash mental health programs in communities and schools, they are increasingly relying on the juvenile corrections system to handle a generation of young offenders with psychiatric disorders. About two-thirds of the nation’s juvenile inmates — who numbered 92,854 in 2006, down from 107,000 in 1999 — have at least one mental illness, according to surveys of youth prisons, and are more in need of therapy than punishment.
“We’re seeing more and more mentally ill kids who couldn’t find community programs that were intensive enough to treat them,” said Joseph Penn, a child psychiatrist at the Texas Youth Commission. “Jails and juvenile justice facilities are the new asylums.”
At least 32 states cut their community mental health programs by an average of 5 percent this year and plan to double those budget reductions by 2010, according to a recent survey of state mental health offices.
Juvenile prisons have been the caretaker of last resort for troubled children since the 1980s, but mental health experts say the system is in crisis, facing a soaring number of inmates reliant on multiple — and powerful — psychotropic drugs and a shortage of therapists.
In California’s state system, one of the most violent and poorly managed juvenile systems in the country, according to federal investigators, three dozen youth offenders seriously injured themselves or attempted suicide in the last year — a sign, state juvenile justice experts say, of neglect and poor safety protocols.
In Ohio, where Gov. Ted Strickland, a former prison psychologist, approved a 34 percent reduction in community-based mental health services to reduce a budget deficit, Thomas J. Stickrath, the director of the Department of Youth Services, said continuing cuts would swell his youth offender population.
“I’m hearing from a lot of judges saying, ‘I’m sorry I’m sending so-and-so to you, but at least I know that he’ll get the treatment he can’t get in his community,’ ” Mr. Stickrath said.
But youths are often subjected to neglect and violence in juvenile prisons, and studies show that mental illnesses can become worse there.
George, 17, an inmate at Ohio River Valley, detailed his daily cocktail of psychiatric medications, including Abilify and Seroquel. In addition to having bipolar disorder, he is a sex offender and is H.I.V. positive — severe stigmas in prison.
“I be getting punked,” he said, using prison slang to describe how gang youths routinely humiliate him. He blinked, and his leg shook uncontrollably. “They take my food, they hit me, they make me do things.”
Demetrius, 16, another inmate there, said he had received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Officials said he has psychotic episodes and attacks other inmates. In an interview in June, he said he was receiving no mental health counseling or medications. Andrea Kruse, a spokeswoman for Mr. Stickrath, said that since July 1, he has had more than 20 counseling sessions.
According to a Government Accountability Office report, in 2001, families relinquished custody of 9,000 children to juvenile justice systems so they could receive mental health services.
Donald has been in and out of mental health programs since he attacked a schoolteacher at age 5. As he grew older, he became more violent until he was eventually committed to the Department of Youth Services.
“I’ve begged D.Y.S. to get him into a mental facility where they’re trained to deal with people like him,” said his grandmother, who asked not to be identified because of the stigma of having a grandson who is mentally ill. “I don’t think a lockup situation is where he should be, although I don’t think he should be on the street either.”
Lawsuits and federal civil rights investigations in Indiana, Maryland, Ohio and Texas have criticized juvenile corrections systems for failing to meet their obligation to prohibit cruel and unusual punishment of prisoners.
Despite downsizing to about 1,650 juvenile inmates from about 10,000 youth offenders in 1996, California’s state system remains under a 2004 federal mandate to improve conditions, including mental health services — the result of a class-action lawsuit that documented the systematic physical and sexual abuse of wards.
Under a plan to reduce the state juvenile inmate population, many youths who once would have been held by the state are now detained by the Los Angeles County juvenile detention system. Los Angeles County is also under a federal mandate to improve psychiatric services for juvenile inmates, especially at the six camps at its Challenger Memorial Youth Center, which holds most of the county’s medium- and high-risk offenders and most of its mentally ill ones.
“We were told that the Challenger camps are, paradoxically, the only camps at which staff are authorized to carry O.C. spray,” wrote federal civil rights investigators in a 2008 report to county authorities, referring to oleoresin capsicum, known as pepper spray. “One supervisor told us that he believed that allowing staff to carry and use O.C. spray made sense given the ‘mental health population.’ ”
The investigators also recounted how staff members body slammed unruly juveniles, often breaking their bones.
In May, a reporter toured the Los Angeles County Central Juvenile Hall with Eric Trupin, a consultant hired by the Department of Justice to monitor mental health services in California’s juvenile justice system. Dr. Trupin, a psychologist, said some detainees appeared to be held there for no reason other than that they were mentally ill and the county had no other institution capable of treating them.
One inmate at the county’s juvenile hall, Eric, 18, was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and prescribed Risperdal, a powerful antipsychotic, to help him avoid violent flashes of temper.
A public defender who specializes in juvenile mental health issues, said Eric had been arrested more than 20 times near his South Los Angeles home. Dr. Trupin worried that if Eric is released and arrested again, he will be charged as an adult and enter the Los Angeles County jail, the nation’s largest residential mental institution, with 1,400 mentally ill inmates.
In the 1960s and ’70s, the increasing availability of antipsychotic medications coincided with a national movement to close public mental hospitals. Many private hospitals barred psychotic patients, including juveniles. By the 1980s, juvenile justice systems had become the primary providers of residential psychiatric care for mentally ill youths.
But as cutbacks have worsened, the debate has intensified over what constitutes adequate mental health care. Often juvenile justice systems have very little to go on when attempting a diagnosis.
“Often Daddy is nowhere to be found, Mommy might be in jail,” said Daniel Connor, a psychiatrist for the Connecticut juvenile corrections system. “The home phone is cut off. The parent speaks another language, so it’s often hard to figure out exactly what’s going on with each kid.”
School records often do not arrive with arrested youths, nor do files often come from other corrections institutions. The lack of information is particularly problematic when psychiatrists try to prescribe medications. Joseph Parks, medical director for the Missouri Department of Mental Health and a national expert on pharmaceutical drug use in corrections facilities, said many juvenile offenders are prescribed multiple psychiatric drugs as they move from mental health clinics to detention halls to juvenile prisons.
A decade ago, it was rare to find juvenile offenders on two psychotropic drugs at once, Dr. Parks said. Now, many take three or four at a time, often for nonprescribed uses like helping the youths sleep.
“If you just give a kid a pill, the prison administration doesn’t have to do anything differently,” he said. “The staff doesn’t have to do anything differently. The guards don’t have to get more training.”
Census studies of child mental health professionals show chronic shortages. A 2006 study estimated that for every 100,000 youths, there were fewer than nine child psychiatrists. Dr. Penn of Texas said the state youth prison system there recently instituted a system of telepsychiatry sessions, conducting videoconferences between mental health professionals and youths being detained hundreds of miles away.
Inadequate mental health services increases recidivism. In a February report on psychiatric services at the Ohio River Valley center, Dr. Cheryl Wills, an independent mental health expert, found that officials were unnecessarily extending incarceration for youths who acted out because of their mental illnesses.
Mr. Stickrath, the director of the Ohio Department of Youth Services, said that one challenge in dealing with large numbers of psychologically ill youths is determining who is “mad versus bad.” He mentioned Donald, whose file he knew by heart.
“He’s been in 130 fights since he’s been with us, and there were no resources in the small county he’s from to deal with him,” Mr. Stickrath said. “Our staff worked to get him in a sophisticated psychiatric residential program, but they said he had to leave because he was attacking staff.”
Mr. Stickrath shook his head. “He just wears you out.” ..Source.. by
August 10, 2009
Mentally Ill Offenders Strain Juvenile System
August 9, 2009
AK- Accused child molester must stand trial despite low I.Q.
Is there a compasionate societal answer for folks like this (Alaska recognizes they have many in prison), to protect everyone?
8-9-2009 Alaska:
For Victor Oustigoff the courtroom was not a bad place to be -- away from the sneers and taunts in jail. His lawyer told him all he would have to do is answer questions. That was simple. He could handle that.
Oustigoff, 63, sat in the hard chair and picked at the cuticles of his worn-down fingernails, his eyes blankly staring at his handiwork. His oily hair hung like a shield over his face.
The question that brought him to court that day: Was he mentally competent to go to trial? Could he help defend himself against criminal charges that he molested six girls?
The judge would eventually rule that he was, despite his I.Q. of 70, which is 30 points below average -- on the edge of retardation, according to professional standards.
There are hundreds of people in Alaska prisons like Oustigoff, people who are mentally incapacitated in ways that cannot be medicated. Many suffer from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, others from traumatic brain injuries. They revolve in and out of the jails. The state punishes them for mostly petty crimes; they do their time and are released only to come back on a new charge.
While the Department of Corrections is the state's largest provider of mental health services, it can do little for people like Oustigoff who are more handicapped than mentally ill. Other state agencies can, in fact, do very little for him also.
If people like him don't have family to monitor their behavior, many are left floating through the world on their own -- hurting and being hurt.
NOT THE FIRST TIME
This isn't the first time Oustigoff has been arrested for child molesting. Police say he committed a similar crime in the late 1980s. For that conviction he was sentenced to six years in prison. Then he spent more time in and out of jail for probation violations, such as not checking in with his parole officer. In 2004, he was charged with failing to register as a sex offender.
This time, Oustigoff is charged with 14 counts of various degrees of sexually touching young girls, most of whom were related to him in some way. None of the charges are for actual rape. Anchorage police say he had six victims from the summer of 2002 to October 2007, ranging in age from 3 to 10 years old.
The Anchorage police officer who investigated Oustigoff, Sgt. Gerard Asselin, said he had no qualms about arresting him. Oustigoff knew what he was doing was wrong and tried to cover his tracks, Asselin said.
"Mr. Oustigoff admitted to a lifetime of conduct similar in nature both in Anchorage and his prior village. ... How can he not know? He's doing it because he's getting -- pardon me -- but he's getting his rocks off."
Asselin said that when police discovered what Oustigoff was doing, he tried to hide it and blamed others. "Blaming other people for what you're doing? There's a lot of thought process going on there," he said.
ALWAYS DIFFERENT
From the time he was a little boy on St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs, Oustigoff's family knew there was something not quite right about him, said his older brother Vlass Shabolin, who still lives in the village.
When Oustigoff was a little boy his mother died, depriving him of the woman who was kind, patient and protective of his oddities. He watched her cancer progress, a battle she fought largely on her own, pulling out the tube in her throat to clean it herself.
After her death, the family would find him sleeping by her cold grave at night.
"He had it rough," said his sister Manefa Bartley.
Like his siblings, Oustigoff was adopted and raised by neighbors.
It's not clear when or why he was first taken off the island. He told the court during one proceeding that it was because he was told not to speak Russian at school, so he threatened the teacher with a razor.
But there's another story. Several years after his mother's death, Oustigoff and his best friend were chasing foxes on the windy tundra when the other boy plunged to his death off a steep cliff. Oustigoff returned home late, couldn't stop screaming, and had to be hospitalized that night, Bartley said.
The dead boy's mother blamed Oustigoff for what happened. Even Oustigoff's own family doesn't seem to be too sure.
Shabolin says whatever happened "put violence in his (brother's) mind."
As Oustigoff tells it 50 years later from jail: "I found his body. We should have stayed off the cliff. They said I killed him."
What does an isolated, rural community do with a person -- a child -- like this? Mostly they send them away. Back in the 1950s, that's what they did with Oustigoff. He was sent to Morningside Hospital, an infamous Portland, Ore., institution where Alaska used to send its mentally ill before it was shut down in the 1960s.
Even today, after the passage of so many years, Oustigoff has held on to the memories about being torn away from the island. Ask him about his day or what he did yesterday and he'll break into stories about Morningside. The stories don't make sense but the images repeat: electric shock treatment, padlocks on the doors, telling nurses "he's not a faggot," and being beaten.
FIVE PERCENTERS
Oustigoff is scattered in his thoughts and in addition to his low I.Q. may have fetal alcohol problems, although he's never been diagnosed. He functions well enough that he doesn't need a guardian, but he's not capable enough to function "normally" in daily life, his family says.
People like him who are mildly cognitively impaired don't qualify for community service programs, said Steve Williams, a program officer with Alaska Mental Health Trust who focuses on disability justice. "It is very difficult for them," he said.
Because they aren't protected in the swaddle of those services, as more impaired people are, they have a higher risk of entering the criminal justice system, he said.
Laura Brooks, the director of behavioral health with the state Department of Corrections, estimates 2 to 5 percent of people in prisons are like Oustigoff. "Often times it's really challenging to identify these folks because they really fly under the radar," she said. "They are quiet or subdued and so they don't always come to the attention unless there's a problem or unless they tell us that they need some assistance."
Alaska, with one of the highest rates of fetal alcohol syndrome in the country, may have more of such prisoners than other states, she said.
While experts in developmental disabilities say the vast majority of impaired people are more often victim than perpetrator, those who commit wrongs prove difficult to deal with.
"When you have someone who is mentally incapacitated and may not be capable of learning or understanding that this kind of stuff is wrong, what do you do with them? It's a very difficult situation," said Cindy Strout, an Anchorage defense attorney who is not involved in the Oustigoff case but spoke generally about cases like his.
"It's horrible that he's perped on other kids, but it's also horrible for him that now he's going to spend the rest of his life in jail. That's not good for anybody if there's some middle ground for him in a placement where he's supervised."
There's really no place in the state for people who need long-term supervisory care unless they agree to it, she said.
NO GOING HOME
In his late 20s, Oustigoff tried to go back to St. Paul, but it wasn't long before he was put into a straightjacket and taken off again.
"They said I wasn't allowed back on the island. They called me a dangerous person," he said from the Anchorage jail, where he has been housed for two years awaiting the outcome of the molesting charges. "They said I wasn't allowed to go to school in St. Paul or anywhere. I said that's baloney. That's my rights."
Kicked off the island again, his years as a young adult included stints in jail and the Alaska Psychiatric Institute in Anchorage. He racked up misdemeanor charges of assault, disorderly conduct, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, trespass and larceny.
Those who remember him still don't want him back. They remember that when he returned to St. Paul in the 1980s, it led to trouble.
LESSONS
There is no doubt life dealt Oustigoff a bad hand, but that's not the fault of his victims, those on law enforcement say.
The 1991 charging documents against Oustigoff say he repeatedly sexually abused a 12-year-old St. Paul girl. He admitted to having sex with her at least five times, according to court records. One time, he paid her for her silence.
Shabolin, who was a longtime constable for the Alaska State Troopers on the island, believes the earlier case against his brother was bogus. His brother got caught up in village drama laced with alcoholism, revenge and lying, he insists. "Victor never bothered anybody."
Shabolin says his brother is more hurt than hurtful, always has been, and probably always will be. The problem is he desperately wants to be liked. That lands him in compromising situations with people taking advantage of him, even as the family has tried to protect him. "You can tell Victor anything and he'll do it for you," he said.
That's especially a problem when he gets around alcoholics or criminals, his brother said. Oustigoff falls into their rhythm, adopts their behavior.
Documents from the most recent court case say Oustigoff suffers from the residual effects of alcohol dependence, but his family doesn't think so.
In the 1990s case, Judge Karl Johnstone seemed to think Oustigoff had learned his lesson from being arrested and jailed. "I have no information to suggest that Mr. Oustigoff is a pedophile, that he preys on young women," Johnstone concluded.
"Mr. Oustigoff, with no lack of respect, has a low I.Q. and this is the type of thing that is like putting your hand on a stove," he said. "If you have a low I.Q., it hurts, you don't do it again, and you don't have to be a brain trust to understand the consequences of your acts."
Oustigoff was told to stay away from children.
But keeping kids away from him didn't happen. One of the victims in the latest case was the granddaughter of a neighbor. The charges say Oustigoff was at her house on Halloween 2007. Oustigoff molested the girl, dressed as a princess for Halloween, in the bathroom while the grandmother was in the other room. The 3-year-old told police that Oustigoff told her not to tell anyone.
Sgt. Asselin said family and police had approached Oustigoff before about inappropriate behavior; he's been told not to do it. "He knows enough to deceive the police and family members about what he's doing but he doesn't know enough to know right and wrong?"
FINISHED
Now Oustigoff is an old man.
The only friends or family he has left are his elderly brother and sister.
A civil court proceeding would be necessary for the state or a family member to get control over his life. He would have to be "civilly committed," something neither sibling is willing to do.
His sister Bartley lives in Anchorage but says she is busy being a grandmother. She didn't grow up with Oustigoff, hasn't really been following his case, and feels little obligation toward him. Besides, she said, she wouldn't allow her brother around her grandchildren. She says the current charges are not Oustigoff's fault but anyone who lets children around him should know better.
Shabolin wants something, anything, other than jail for his brother. Life behind bars is very difficult for him, he says. "They pursue him, they know he's mentally retarded."
"I've been trying so hard to get Victor put in a home," he said in a phone interview from St. Paul. "He has to have 24-hour attention."
He has offered to take care of him on the island but doubts the state will allow it because he has his grandchildren in the house.
"Victor needs all the help he can get," Shabolin said.
When asked where he wants to be and what he wants to be doing, Oustigoff said he doesn't want someone else to be in charge of him. He wants to fish and hunt seal. Going to trial then to prison for the rest of his life isn't real in his mind.
"Then maybe come back here (to Anchorage) and finish my school," he says. "And I think about studying with the monks."
His trial is set for mid-September. ..Source.. by MEGAN HOLLAND
April 1, 2008
Jails Are the ‘New Asylums,’ Report Says
4-1-2008 National:
Local jail populations are exploding and have become the "new asylums," with six of 10 inmates suffering from mental illness, according to a new report released today by the Justice Policy Institute.
The 38-page report (PDF) says that despite lower crime rates, the jail population has nearly doubled over the past 20 years.
Researchers note that jails are "warehousing" more individuals who have yet to be convicted of any crime and for longer periods of time. This is attributed, in part, to rising costs of bail.
“Jail bonds have skyrocketed, so that means if you’re poor, you do time. People are being punished before they’re found guilty—justice is undermined," report co-author Amanda Petteruti said in a release about the findings.
The report, Jailing Communities: The Impact of Jail Expansion and Effective Public Safety Strategies, says that communities are struggling to deal with jails full of individuals with drug addictions, who are homeless or who are charged with immigration offenses.
Racial disparities were also noted. For instance, Latinos were revealed to be the most likely to have to pay bail, have the highest bail amounts and are least likely to be released before trial. African-Americans are five times as likely to be jailed than whites and three times as likely as Latinos.
The report makes several recommendations, including that communities should:
-- Improve release procedures for pretrial and sentenced populations.
-- Develop and implement alternatives to incarceration, such as community-based corrections.
-- Divert people with mental health and drug treatment needs to the public health system and community-based treatment, which is more cost-effective than incarceration. ..more.. by Molly McDonough
March 27, 2008
Supreme Court Hears Case Involving Mentally Ill Defendants Representing Themselves
Given the belief, whether true or not, that sex offenders are incurable, will this case affect them? See also today's Washington Post: High Court Weighs Self-Representation
3-27-2008 National:
When mentally ill defendants are found competent to stand trial, does that also mean they are competent enough to represent themselves in court?
The Supreme Court struggled with that question Wednesday during an oral argument that weighed the Sixth Amendment right to self-representation against a state's interest in not having trials "descend into farce." Along the way, some lawyer jokes were also cracked.
The issue in the case Indiana v. Edwards is whether a state may impose a higher standard of competence for self-representation than the fairly minimal test for deciding if a defendant is competent to stand trial. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that Ahmad Edwards, diagnosed as a schizophrenic, was denied his right to represent himself at a 2005 trial for a department store robbery and shooting.
The trial judge had determined that while Edwards met the standard for competence to stand trial -- he understood the proceedings and could assist his lawyer -- he did not have the additional competence to represent himself.
Indiana, backed by the Justice Department, argue that in the interest of protecting both the reality and appearance of fairness and dignity of the courts, states should be allowed to set higher standards for self-representation.
"If the public sees the spectacle of a mentally ill defendant ... attempt to communicate to the jury on his own in a very delusional way, it really casts the justice system into disrepute," Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Michael Dreeben told the justices.
But Mark Stancil, the lawyer for Edwards, was just as adamant that a defendant declared competent to stand trial should be allowed to handle his or her defense.
"The expressed premise of the Sixth Amendment and of our adversarial system generally is that the defense belongs to the accused and not to the state," said Stancil of D.C.'s Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber.
Stancil said states have adequate tools, including appointment of standby counsel, to handle problems that arise.
Justice David Souter challenged Stancil on that point, asserting that "by the time standby counsel is required to take over, the damage is done."
Souter's comment, similar to concerns voiced by Justice Stephen Breyer, suggested they might favor a higher standard for self-representation in the interest of fairness.
"We've heard lots of complaints from trial judges," Breyer said. "Very disturbed people are being deprived and end up in prison because they're disturbed rather than because they're guilty."
Justice Antonin Scalia took the opposite view, arguing that if a competent defendant decides to represent himself, any resulting taint "would be his own fault."
Rather than a judge barring a defendant from self-representation before the trial starts, Scalia said, why not "wait to see whether he's going to pull it off or not?"
If a defendant can be allowed to plead guilty, Scalia added, he or she should also be allowed to make the less serious decision in favor of self-representation.
As the justices compared the attributes of self-led defense and lawyer-led representation, some jokes were probably inevitable.
When Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher suggested a test that would allow judges to bar self-representation for those who "cannot communicate coherently with the court or jury," Scalia mulled the phrase. "Cannot communicate coherently? ... I sometimes think that the lawyers cannot communicate coherently." Spectators laughed.
When Stancil noted that his client understood voir dire and other trial basics, Justice Anthony Kennedy blurted out, "There are all kinds of nuts who could get 90 percent on the bar exam." Laughter ensued, but it appeared some in the audience thought his choice of words was inappropriate.
At another point, Kennedy also said it was unrealistic to believe that some disturbed defendants would obey judges' orders to keep their arguments on track.
"They don't communicate," Kennedy said. "It's two ships passing in the night or in the case of some defendants, about five ships passing in the night." ..more.. by Law.com
