5-14-2009 National:
Faced with the high costs of transporting and escorting sick inmates to the doctor, states are expanding their use of videoconferencing to provide health consultations to prisoners without resorting to costly — and sometimes dangerous — off-site trips.
Illinois is considering joining at least 26 other states that use “telemedicine” to help sick prisoners get advice from doctors, according to Derek Schnapp, a spokesman with the state Department of Corrections. State prison officials recently met with their counterparts from Texas — which has been using telemedicine for years and is considered a national leader — to discuss whether it should be introduced in Illinois, Schnapp said.
Elsewhere, videoconferencing in prisons and jails is replacing inmates’ in-person trips to the courtroom or parole board, and even the way family members visit.
Supporters say the technology saves money when few states have funds to spare; Arizona, for instance, saved $237,000 in 2008 by using telemedicine at nine correctional facilities, according to the state Department of Corrections. But some have criticized the expansion of videoconferencing.
Relying on technology to keep inmates behind bars makes them “disappear more and more from the public consciousness, and I think there’s a (negative) long-term consequence of that,” said Nancy Stoller, a professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz and the coordinator of a jail and prison task force at the American Public Health Association.
Telemedicine is not a new invention, but experts say the recession could drive more states to consider it. Many of those that already rely on telemedicine, meanwhile, are using it for a wider range of purposes.
In Georgia, about 700 of the state prison system’s 1,000 monthly videoconference consultations between doctors and inmates are for psychiatric — not physical — problems, said Alan Adams, director of the Office of Health Services for the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Adams said he is surprised at how popular “telepsychiatry” — as the practice is called — has proven among doctors and inmates alike. Prisoners who might otherwise have reservations about face-to-face psychiatric evaluations, Adams said, tend to speak more openly when they are connected to doctors through a video link.
“It takes some of the personal nature of the contact away and allows the inmate to be more open and free,” Adams said, predicting that more states will use telepsychiatry.
Telemedicine and telepsychiatry work by letting inmates and doctors communicate with each other using interactive, real-time audio and video links.
The practice — which has been praised by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care — is most often used for consultation, not treatment. Doctors, for example, can check up on inmates after they have had surgery and recommend further action. On-site nurses usually assist the doctors by employing stethoscopes, taking inmates’ blood pressure and carrying out other in-person tasks.
Cost savings can be especially significant when inmates are located in rural prisons that can be hundreds of miles away from specialists. A 2006 California legislative audit, meanwhile, noted that telemedicine also can save taxpayer money because it allows a larger pool of medical providers — not just those in the vicinity of a state prison — to compete for state contracts.
Many states also are using videoconferencing to avoid transporting prisoners to court for arraignments and other initial appearances, according to Greg Hurley, an analyst with the National Center for State Courts, which researches court trends across the nation. Parole hearings also can be conducted by videoconference.
Connecticut last year finished installing videoconferencing equipment at all 18 of its state correctional facilities and the state’s court system is studying ways to expand the practice. The state’s corrections commissioner, Theresa Lantz, noted that videoconferencing saves the state money it would otherwise have to spend on vehicles, gasoline, correctional officers and overtime.
Illinois and other states also are looking at videoconferencing to let prisoners talk with family members who might not be able to make the trip to visit them in person.
Four states — Florida, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin — recently have changed their laws to allow so-called “virtual visitation” as an option in family court, allowing some divorced parents to “visit” their children using Skype and other video communications programs. Now, there is a growing push among prisoner advocates to allow virtual visitation for those behind bars as well.
The Pennsylvania Prison Society, a nonprofit advocacy group, has partnered with the state Department of Corrections since 2001 to allow inmates’ families to come to the organization’s offices and speak on a video link with their loved ones serving time. A 55-minute session costs the family $20, according to the group’s Web site.
While virtual visitation has primarily been hailed for making visitations between inmates and their families easier, some state officials see savings for the taxpayer as well.
When family members don’t come to visit inmates in prison, “that’s one less person that has to be searched. That’s one less person you need to use full-time staff to keep an eye on during visitation,” said Michael Nail, deputy director of the corrections division for the Georgia Department of Corrections. In addition, Nail said, videoconferencing reduces the possibility that contraband material — such as drugs or weapons — will find its way into prison.
Indeed, concerns about public safety have played a major role in the expansion of videoconferencing behind bars. That is particularly true in states that have seen correctional officers, medical professionals or others assaulted — or even killed — during inmate trips away from prison.
In June 2007, for example, a 27-year-old white supremacist doing time at the Utah State Prison stole a gun from a 60-year-old correctional officer who was overseeing him during a trip to a Salt Lake City medical center for an MRI. The inmate, Curtis Allgier, killed the officer before being tracked down and arrested by the authorities at a city fast-food restaurant.
The incident — which rocked Utah and made national headlines — resulted in a series of changes in the Utah’s correctional facilities, said Angie Welling, a spokeswoman with the state corrections department. Utah State Prison now offers MRIs and dialysis on site, and the state has expanded its use of telemedicine to cover specialized areas of medicine: cardiology, dermatology, obstetrics and orthopedics. The aim is to cut down on potentially deadly trips to the hospital.
“It’s sad to think that something of that tragic nature is necessary to kick-start some of these initiatives,” Welling said.
But the proliferation of videoconferencing equipment in prisons and jails has not come without criticism.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a state workers’ union, has criticized Illinois officials for considering using telemedicine — which may cut down on the need for correctional officers in some settings. “At face value, we don’t believe telemedicine in prison settings is a good idea,” an AFSCME spokesman told the Quad-City Times.
Others have questioned the long-term implications of using videoconferencing for health care and other purposes. Stoller, the University of California-Santa Cruz professor, questioned whether the quality of care offered through telemedicine consultations compares to seeing a doctor in person.
Expanded videoconferencing could have long-term consequences on prisoners’ mental health and their ability to interact effectively with others, she said. ..News Source.. by John Gramlich, Stateline.org Staff Writer
May 14, 2009
States expand videoconferencing in prisons
April 1, 2009
NV- Judge Certifies Class Action in Nevada Prison Suit
4-1-2009 Nevada:
A federal judge in Nevada on Tuesday certified class action status for a lawsuit filed by inmates who claim inadequate medical care at Ely State Prison constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and civil rights violations.
In his 14-page order, U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks appointed attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union to represent "all prisoners who are now, or in the future will be, in the custody of the Nevada Department of Corrections" at the state's maximum security prison.
The ACLU filed suit against the prison in March 2008 on behalf of several inmates.
It alleges that deprivation of medical care is so extreme that all inmates are subjected to "constant significant risk of serious injury, medical harm, premature death, and the needless infliction of great physical pain and suffering."
The ACLU seeks a court-ordered monitor to oversee care at the prison on grounds that the Corrections Department has not provided adequate medical care to the 1,000 inmates, including those on death row.
"The ACLU of Nevada is heartened by the order, which indicates that the federal court is taking allegations of substandard medical care at Ely State Prison very seriously," ACLU attorney Lee Rowland said in a statement Tuesday.
The class certification, Rowland said, "will permit us to look into the conditions at Ely State Prison in a thorough and thoughtful manner and get the best evidence before the federal court."
The suit names as defendants members of Nevada's Prison Board -- Gov. Jim Gibbons, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller. Also named are Howard Skolnik, Department of Corrections director; Robert Bannister, corrections medical director; and E.K. McDaniel, the warden at Ely.
Skolnik said Tuesday he had not seen the latest filing and had no comment.
State officials have earlier defended medical practices at Ely, saying they met constitutional standards.
"The operations of an infirmary in a prison are different than working in a hospital," Skolnik said previously.
Hicks' ruling comes a week after he refused to dismiss a separate lawsuit alleging prison and medical staff deliberately withheld medical treatment from the former manager of the 1950s Coasters music group, leading to his slow and painful death from gangrene while on death row in Nevada.
That suit, filed by the family of Patrick Cavanaugh, seeks unspecified general, special and punitive damages. Cavanaugh, a diabetic, died in 2006 at age 60.
In Dec. 2007, the ACLU released a report written by Dr. William Noel claiming a pattern of "gross medical abuse" at the prison.
Noel said he reviewed the medical records of 35 Ely inmates, including Cavanaugh. In his report, he described treatment as "the most shocking and callous disregard for human life and human suffering, that I have ever encountered in the medical profession in my 35 years of practice." ..News Source.. by EyewitnessNews
August 16, 2008
36 states release ill or dying inmates
There is a comment highlighted below which, as to any sex offender that may be dieing (excepting death row cases) and is treated differently than any other person as to release, amounts to further punishment. After all, do sex offenders, in prison and dieing, and if released, have some inner ability to heal themselves. Folks, this is absurd vindictiveness by lawmakers or whoever else makes these decisions.
IN RE MEDLEY 3-3-1890 Question: In essence, a death row prisoner was sentenced under laws that permitted certain visistation rights, however, under the new law those rights are to be denied. Excellent example of a violation of ex post facto clause construing those visitation rights denied as further punishment.
8-16-2008 National:
North Carolina and Alabama have joined a growing number of states establishing programs that allow the release of dying or infirm prisoners to cut prison system health care costs.
Alabama's law goes into effect Sept. 1. It will allow inmates who are permanently incapacitated or terminally ill to be furloughed. It will also allow for the release of inmates 55 or older who have life threatening illnesses. About 125 of the state's 25,000 inmates will be eligible, Alabama Prisons Commissioner Richard Allen said.
Inmates considered for parole will be "the frailest of the frail and sickest of the sick," Allen said. North Carolina's legislation took effect June 10. Authorities are still assessing policies and procedures, state prisons system spokesman Keith Acree said.
In both states, inmates convicted of capital offenses and most sex crimes aren't eligible, Allen and Acree said.
A USA TODAY review of state department of corrections' policies found 36 states have some program allowing for the early release of dying or infirm prisoners. Before Alabama and North Carolina, Wyoming was the most recent to add such a program in March. Michigan and Montana added programs in 2007.
Known in some states as medical furlough, humanitarian parole or compassionate release, states with the programs rely on their boards of pardons and paroles to follow up on inmates released for medical reasons, a phone and e-mail survey of states' departments of corrections showed.
The driving force behind medical release of inmates is the rising cost of medical treatment for prison systems, said Ron McCuan, a public health analyst with the National Institute of Corrections, an umbrella agency of the Justice Department.
Alabama figures show terminally ill or infirm inmates cost the system about $60,000-$65,000 per year per inmate, Allen said. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said that by releasing ill or infirm inmates, the costs of their care will be shifted to Medicare, which is funded by the federal government, or Medicaid, which is funded by the state and federal governments.
Allen said inmates would go to stay with relatives or be placed in hospice care or admitted to hospitals depending on their condition and level of care needed.
"Early release of terminal or infirm inmates without a doubt saves tremendous amounts of tax dollars," McCuan said. "The taxpayer simply can't afford to pay exploding end-of-life health care costs."
Victims rights' advocates say furlough programs shift, rather than end, the taxpayer's burden for health care costs.
The Alabama program doesn't make sense financially or from a public safety standpoint, said Miriam Shehane, of Victims of Crime and Leniency (VOCAL), a victims rights' group.
Shehane is a driving force in the victims rights' movement in Alabama. Her daughter Quenette, a student at Birmingham-Southern College, was abducted from a convenience store parking lot, then raped and murdered in Birmingham in 1976. Three men were convicted.
No money is really saved, Shehane maintains, because inmate care moves to other government programs.
"This bill is so vague and broad, it's scary," Shehane said. "The release of the inmates is in the sole power of the prisons commissioner. There's no telling who we will have heading the prison system 10 or 15 years down the road. There needs to be more controls in place."
Mary Lou Leary, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, says the procedures followed for the release of terminally ill prisoners should mirror those followed for anyone released.
"It's particularly important that victims be notified that the offender has been released so victims are aware of the release and can take feasible steps to protect themselves."
Riley has insisted victims be included in the process, said press secretary Tara Hutchison.
Among states with furlough programs:
•Wyoming's law, passed in March, went into effect July 1, said Melinda Brazzale, spokeswoman for the prisons system. For a terminally ill inmate to be considered for release, she said, they must have a life expectancy of 12 months or less.
•Ohio prison system officials are looking to change the requirement that terminally ill inmates must have a life expectancy of six months or less before being considered, said Sara Andrews, superintendent of the Adult Parole Authority. A bill pending in the state legislature would broaden that time frame to one year, she said.
• Oklahoma's prison system began medical parole in 2000. Since then about 135 inmates have been released, said Bob Mann, coordinator of clinical social work for the state's prison system.
There have only been "one or two inmates" returned to the prisons who were granted medical parole, Mann said. "Those were offenders of lesser crimes. If I recall, they got involved in drugs once they were released," he said. "Most of the inmates are sent home to die." ..News Source.. by Marty Roney
May 18, 2008
MI- Courts, prisons fail in treatment, intervention for mentally disordered
5-18-2008 Michigan:
IONIA -- Terry Casha's fate, the path that led him to a prison cell in Ionia, likely was determined before he was born.
He came into the world weighing a little more than 2 pounds and was not expected to live. His twin sister died a few months later with extensive brain damage.
He went from the hospital to foster care, then was adopted by parents who nurtured him and loved him the same as they did their six biological children. But whatever care they gave him was not enough to overcome the burden inflicted on him by his birth mother, an alcoholic who drank throughout her pregnancy.
Other Michigan inmates, such as Chad Childers, whose medicine to control paranoid schizophrenia was taken away, represent persistent claims that mental illnesses do not get proper treatment in prison. Terry Casha's story, however, shows other parts of the justice system also can be blind to the disorders.
For his first 18 years, Casha stayed out of trouble, followed the rules. Only after he graduated and went out on his own did the trouble begin. He couldn't hold a job. He lost his apartment and ended up living in the missions and on the streets of Grand Rapids. He had minor brushes with the law -- driving on a suspended license, urinating in public -- then the major one that landed him in prison.
He has been told he has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, the umbrella term for a range of disabilities, but he can't describe how it affects him.
"I just am what I am," he said, sitting in a small room in the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility, while a couple of guards watched from beyond two thick panes of glass. "From what I'm understanding about the disease, it is bad. It's kind of hard for me to describe it. It's just something I got to live with, basically."
He's 32 but has the emotional development of a person perhaps half his age. Those who suffer from the disorder need supervision and structure, a routine, to keep them from getting in trouble, experts say.
No one knows how many of the 51,000 inmates in Michigan's prisons suffered brain damage due to prenatal alcohol exposure, but a University of Washington study found half of those with the disorder end up in prisons or mental institutions.
Yet few states recognize fetal alcohol as a mitigating factor in criminal cases, and Michigan's prisons offer no programs to treat it.
That's why Kathryn Kelly recently came to Grand Rapids. She is a project director in the University of Washington's Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit, the only program in the country that tries to help people with fetal alcohol disorders stay out of trouble.
She met with Kent County District Court officials to discuss creating a similar program in Grand Rapids.
A downward spiral
Terry Casha did not begin speaking until he was nearly 4 years old. He attended special education classes in St. Clair Shores, where the family lived. As a teen, he came to live with his brother Jerry in Wyoming, attended Wyoming Park High School, then graduated from Allendale High School.
Jerry taught him welding, hired him to work in his shop, but fired him for continually failing to show up for work, a pattern that repeated itself as his life began a downward spiral of lost jobs and minor scrapes with the law.
"I don't think he understands the consequences for what he's doing," Jerry said recently. "I could never explain to him, 'Terry, you can't go out and drive if you don't have a driver's license.' He doesn't understand it. He thinks for the moment."
With no income, Terry was evicted from his apartment and ended up living in the Guiding Light and Mel Trotter missions in Grand Rapids.
In 2003, in a mosh pit at a concert in Rosa Parks Circle, he touched a young woman's breast. When a police officer tried to arrest him, Terry ran. He was tackled and charged with criminal sexual conduct and assault for resisting arrest.
He pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, a misdemeanor, and was placed on the state's sex offender list. When the people at Mel Trotter learned he was on the list, they kicked him out, since under state law, no registered sex offenders may live within 1,000 feet of a school. With Catholic Central High in the neighborhood, the Guiding Light also was off limits.
So he lived on the streets, then moved in with a friend -- or a man he thought was a friend -- at a house in Cascade Township. His housemate once dumped an ashtray in his mouth while he slept, poured urine in his ear and pushed him down the stairs, but Casha never fought back.
At a party in that neighborhood, he met a girl, and a few days later, April 1, 2006, they walked together to a store to buy liquor and cigarettes. What happened next is in dispute. She said he raped her. He said she seduced him.
When her parents found out, they came to the house, dragged Casha onto the porch and beat him. The police arrested him, charging him with first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Casha admitted he had sex with the girl, but he insisted it was consensual.
Legally, it was irrelevant whether she consented or was forcibly raped. The fact she was two months short of her 16th birthday made it a crime. Casha insisted he thought she was much older, and five people signed affidavits saying the girl was sexually promiscuous with older men and often lied about her age.
A plea for leniency
Despite that, Casha pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct -- having sex with a minor -- and thought he'd get off with a short jail term. At his sentencing last October, his attorney pleaded for leniency and submitted a report by a psychologist who warned that Casha could be easily victimized in prison.
"A very high level adult foster care situation may, in fact, be appropriate for Terry," the psychologist wrote. But Kent County Circuit Judge Donald Johnston sentenced him to 7-15 years.
"If fetal alcohol syndrome causes Mr. Casha to commit crimes of this sort, then, clearly, he needs to be institutionalized," he said. "If he's out and about under his own power, then he has to be held responsible by the same standards as anyone else."
Some months later, Johnston said state law gave him no choice, and Michigan has no facility for people with the disorder.
"Unfortunately, the only structured environment we have is the Michigan Department of Corrections," he said, but added: "Between you and me and the lamp post, I don't know too many people who get better in prison."
A mother's anguish
Anna Casha never thought she'd visit one of her children in prison. At 81, she dreaded it, but came anyway from her home in Bloomfield Hills to Bellamy Creek.
Inside the prison, she and two of her other sons, Jim and Jerry, were patted down and removed their shoes and socks to prove they were not smuggling in drugs. After a long wait, they sat across from Terry in a room filled with other visitors and inmates.
"It tears me apart," Anna said, especially the children who come to visit their fathers. "They're all in the same boat."
Her anguish is multiplied by two. Anna and her husband raised their six biological children and took in 15 foster kids, adopting two of them. Her biological children all have stable lives and careers. Her two adopted sons, Terry and Billy, both went to prison. She knows less about Billy's prenatal care, but suspects he, too, has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. He has done two terms for stealing and domestic abuse.
"I worry a lot," Anna Casha said. "I pray when I open my eyes in the morning and when I go to bed at night. The thing is, they're not bad kids. They are good kids. They are sick. I never stopped loving them, and I will love them until the day I close my eyes, because they are mine."
A hope for freedom
For Jim Casha, a civil engineer who lives in Virginia, winning Terry's freedom is an obsession. He writes letters, makes phone calls, sends faxes and e-mails to anyone he believes can help.
When Terry was 3 or 4 years old, he fell into the family's backyard pool. Jim, then in his early 20s, dived in and saved him. When Jim was 25, he promised their mother he'd always look after Terry.
For a while, Terry lived with Jim and his wife, but, when Terry's drinking caused tension in the family, they asked him to leave.
"My God, what have I done?" Jim said, the day before visiting his brother in prison.
"Why didn't I help him? I knew he could not handle his own affairs. I should have been more diligent in making sure he had what he needed. He needs a group home, someone to manage his affairs"
Terry said he appreciates his family's concern, but he expects he will spend many more years in prison. He won't have his first parole hearing for five years. He has heard the parole board doesn't release most sex offenders until they have served the maximum.
"I'm gonna do 15 years," he said. "When I get out, I gotta worry about my neighbors, because I'm a sex offender. They can burn down my house, and I can't even have a gun to protect myself.
"Who's gonna hire me? Who's gonna rent me a house? Who?" ..more.. by Pat Shellenbarger | The Grand Rapids Press
MI- District court considers program to prevent repeat offenses by those with fetal-alcohol syndrome
5-18-2008 Michigan:
GRAND RAPIDS -- A court in Seattle was the first in the country to create a program aimed at helping fetal alcohol children avoid repeated violations of the law.
A court in Grand Rapids might become the second.
Kathryn Kelly, a project director at the University of Washington's Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit, met with Kent County District Court officials last month about setting up a program modeled after Seattle's.
The Seattle program -- involving judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, social workers and others -- recognizes the disability as a form of brain damage that makes its sufferers more likely to end up in court and in prison.
"Incarceration is not a cure," Kent County 61st District Judge Patrick Bowler said. "Hopefully, with the kind of community-based resources that we have, perhaps it will open the door to treatment and break the cycle of crime."
The program would be like drug court or sobriety court, offering counseling and social services for defendants diagnosed with or suspected of having a fetal alcohol disorder, aimed at helping them avoid a repeat of their crimes.
One of every 100 babies is born with brain damage because the mother drank during pregnancy, Kelly said. In the most severe cases, the children have visible abnormalities, including a flattish face, thin upper lip, small eye openings and no groove between the mouth and nose.
Most others exhibit no outward physical signs, but CAT scans show brain damage, which can impede memory and cause them to act impulsively without considering the consequences. Many have trouble keeping appointments, holding jobs or functioning in socially acceptable ways.
"When you're looking at someone with fetal alcohol syndrome disorder," Bowler said, "you're looking at someone who is a victim themselves."
Kelly, a former state and federal probation officer in California, said: "I was amazed by the lack of knowledge in the criminal justice system about this disability. These aren't career criminals. They aren't career anything. They simply can't manage their lives. They need help, and that's to the community's benefit, too. It's a lot cheaper than paying for prisons."
Kent County was chosen as a possible location for the program, she said, in part because Spectrum Health has a prenatal alcohol exposure clinic. If a New York-based foundation comes through with start-up money, the program could be up and running by this fall, Kelly said.
Because people with a fetal alcohol disorder are impulsive and easily led astray by others, they have difficulty connecting the punishment with the crime and, therefore, are more apt to repeat it, said Barbara Wybrecht, a fetal alcohol specialist at Spectrum Health.
Early diagnosis and intervention can help them avoid future problems, she said.
"You can punish them forever to death, and they're not going to get it," Wybrecht said. "The whole idea of people with cognitive disorders being held to the letter of the law is ludicrous." ..more.. by Pat Shellenbarger | The Grand Rapids Press
MI- Mother fights system that undid years of work on son's mental illness
5-18-2008 Michigan:
As he headed for prison just over a year ago, Chad Childers feared the doctors there would take away the prescription drugs that silenced the voices in his head and kept his depression at bay.
"Chad, I'm not going to let that happen," his mother promised.
But it did, even though Diana Childers:
• Made certain his pre-sentence report included a detailed record of his mental illness, including a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.
• Got a 30-day supply of the three drugs that controlled it and delivered them to the Lapeer County jail before he was taken to prison.
• Obtained new prescriptions for refills.
• Wrote a letter to the judge, describing Chad's long battle with mental illness.
Despite all that, on March 28, 2007, when Chad arrived at the Michigan Corrections Department's Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson, a prison psychiatrist took away his medication, sending him into a psychotic break of depression and paranoid delusions.
More than a year later, he still has not fully recovered, his mother said.
"I don't want Chad to be given special treatment," she said. "I just want him to be treated as a human being with a chemical imbalance. He is not a monster."
Not an isolated case
Attorneys in a long-running federal lawsuit over conditions in the Jackson prison complex say what happened to Chad Childers has happened to many others.
In a hearing before U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker last month, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Elizabeth Alexander claimed the prison violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Mentally ill prisoners routinely are misdiagnosed, she said, and the prison psychiatrists and psychologists often undiagnose those who were being treated before arriving. Some take away psychotropic medications, warning inmates a diagnosis of mental illness could hurt their chances of getting into certain programs and being paroled, the attorneys claim.
In a letter to his mother, Chad Childers, 26, of Columbiaville in Lapeer County, said a prison psychiatrist told him his medication could make him impotent.
Chad began showing signs of mental illness in his late teens, Diana Childers said. He was admitted to mental hospitals six times, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes by court order after arrests for stealing and breaking and entering.
When he was 21, his doctors diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and settled on a combination of three drugs to control it.
"It took us years to get him on those medications where he was symptom-free," his mother said.
'What medications?'
In November 2006, distraught over problems with a girlfriend, Chad stole a neighbor's car, intending to drive to see her. He pleaded guilty, and a Lapeer County judge sentenced him to 1 1/2-7 1/2 years.
The day after he arrived in Jackson, he wrote his mother a letter, saying the psychiatrist had taken away his medications. She worried he might attempt suicide, particularly since he was placed on the cellblock's fourth tier.
A prison official assured her -- incorrectly, it turned out -- her son was still on his meds. Chad's letters told her otherwise. By his third letter, she could tell he was deteriorating mentally.
"It made me feel like I had let my son down through all the efforts I had made," she said.
She began calling corrections officials in Jackson and Lansing, demanding they resume Chad's medication. An administrator in Lansing promised to help, then stopped returning her calls after Chad's grandmother wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen.
A month after he entered prison, Chad was admitted to Duane Waters hospital in the Jackson complex. His mother assumed it was because he had suffered a mental breakdown, but she later learned he was being treated for cellulitis, a potentially fatal skin infection she believes he contracted due to unsanitary conditions in his cell.
She called and asked a nurse if Chad was receiving his psychotropic medications. "She said, 'What medications?'" Diana recalled.
Chad's medical records had not followed him the short distance to the prison hospital.
Last May 17, Diana finally was allowed to visit her son. His legs were swollen and peeling from the infection, but of more concern was his mental condition. He pulled away when she tried to hug him, claiming she was not his real mother. He reverted to childhood, talking about long-past neighbors.
"He looked bad," his mother said, the worst she had seen him in years. "I cried all the way home."
The next day, he was transferred to the Huron Valley Complex in Ypsilanti, where the state sends many of its mentally ill inmates, and locked in a small cell, his home for the next 135 days.
"They called it observation," Diana said. "I call it solitary confinement. He didn't have a pencil, a Bible, a book, a television, a radio, anything to occupy his mind."
He continued deteriorating, became angry, "like a madman," she said. He cried and smeared feces on himself.
A partial solution
This past February, after placing countless phone calls, after writing two letters to Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Diana Childers met with corrections officials and an assistant attorney general in Lansing. As a result of her persistence, they told her, the Corrections Department had changed its policy, issuing an order that any inmate who arrives with a prescription for psychotropic drugs should continue receiving them for at least 10 days.
Didn't that make her feel better? an assistant attorney general asked. It didn't. Why did it take a mother's persistence to change policy, she wondered, and what happens to inmates who don't have an advocate?
Last fall, Chad was transferred to a prison near Ionia. He is receiving drugs for his mental illness, she said, although not the ones he was taking before entering prison. He has recovered some, but still has a way to go, she said.
By this fall, he will be eligible for parole, but his mother vowed to continue her fight.
"I believe the way we're treating these prisoners is inhumane," she said. "I believe we don't treat our prisoners of war this bad. I hope not. If they let him out of there tomorrow, I would not stop advocating for the mentally ill in prison. Somebody has to." ..more.. by Pat Shellenbarger | The Grand Rapids Press
April 22, 2008
Number of HIV-Positive State and Federal Inmates Continues to Decline
About 44 percent of state inmates and 39 percent of federal inmates have medical problems
4-22-2008 National:
WASHINGTON, April 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Between 2005 and 2006 the number of state and federal prisoners who were HIV-positive decreased 3.1 percent -- from 22,676 to 21,980 inmates, according to a report by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Another BJS report estimated that 44 percent of state inmates and 39 percent of federal inmates reported a current medical problem other than a cold or a virus.
Sixteen states and the federal system reported a decrease in the number of HIV-infected prisoners and 25 states reported an increase from 2005 through 2006. Texas, with 293 more HIV-positive inmates, reported the largest increase. New York with 440 fewer HIV-positive prisoners reported the largest drop.
On December 31, 2006, an estimated 5,977 inmates had confirmed AIDS, up from 5,620 in 2005. Confirmed AIDS cases accounted for more than a quarter of inmates known to be HIV positive.
At yearend 2006 the rate of confirmed AIDS in state and federal prisoners was more than 2 1/2 times higher than in the U.S. population. About 46 in 10,000 prison inmates were estimated to have confirmed AIDS, compared to 17 per 10,000 persons in the general population.
During 2006, the number of AIDS-related deaths in state and federal prisons totaled 167, down from 203 in 2005. In 2006, nearly 5 percent of state inmate deaths were attributable to AIDS, down from 34 percent in 1995.
At yearend 2006, 0.9 percent of federal inmates (1,530) were known to be HIV positive, down from 1,592 in 2005. Of the federal prisoners known to be HIV positive at yearend 2006, 656 had confirmed AIDS, up from 594 in 2005.
During 2006, 12 federal inmates died from AIDS-related causes, down from 27 in 2005. During 2006, the rate of death due to AIDS-related causes among federal prisoners was 6 per 100,000 inmates.
Current medical problems among prisoners include arthritis, asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart problems, hypertension, kidney problems, liver problems, paralysis, problems due to a stroke, hepatitis, HIV, STDs, or tuberculosis. More than half of female inmates and over a third of male inmates reported a current medical problem in a national inmate survey.
Among inmates admitted to state and federal prisons, about an eighth reported having surgery, and half reported having a dental problem. A third of state inmates and 28 percent of federal inmates reported either an accidental injury or a fight-related injury since admission to prison.
More than a third (36 percent) of state inmates and nearly a quarter (24 percent) of federal inmates reported having an impairment, including a learning, speech, hearing, vision, mobility, or mental impairment.
More than half of state (51 percent) and federal inmates (56 percent) who were homeless in the year prior to arrest reported a current medical problem compared to 43 percent of state and 38 percent of federal inmates who were not homeless. Sixty percent of state inmates and 58 percent of federal inmates who used a needle to inject drugs reported a current medical problem compared to 40 percent state and 36 percent of federal who did not.
Among inmates who reported a medical problem, 70 percent of state inmates and 76 percent of federal inmates reported seeing a medical professional because of the problem. More than 8 in 10 inmates in state and federal prisons reported receiving a medical exam or a blood test since admission.
Among females in state prisons, 4 percent said they were pregnant at the time of admission; 3 percent of federal inmates were pregnant. Of those in state prisons who said they were pregnant at admission, 94 percent received an obstetric exam. More than half (54 percent) received some type of pregnancy care.
The reports, HIV in Prisons, 2006 (NCJ-222179), and Medical Problems of Prisoners (NCJ-221740) were written by BJS Statistician Laura M. Maruschak. Following publication, the reports can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/hivp/2006/hivp06.htm and http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/mpp/mpp.htm.
For additional information about the Bureau of Justice Statistics' statistical reports and programs, please visit the BJS Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs.
The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) provides federal leadership in developing the nation's capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice and assist victims. OJP has five component bureaus: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and the Office for Victims of Crime.
Additionally, OJP has two program offices: the Community Capacity Development Office, which incorporates the Weed and Seed strategy, and the Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART) Office. More information can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov. ..more.. by PR Newswire
