A detailed new federal lawsuit alleges chronic abuse and neglect of mentally ill prisoners at America's most famous prison.
By Andrew Cohen
When Jack Powers arrived at maximum-security federal prison in Atlanta in 1990
after a bank robbery conviction, he had never displayed symptoms of or been
treated for mental illness. Still in custody a few years later, he witnessed
three inmates, believed to be members of the Aryan Brotherhood gang, kill
another inmate. Powers tried to help the victim get medical attention, and was
quickly transferred to a segregated unit for his safety, but it didn't stop the
gang's members from quickly threatening him.
Not then. And certainly not after Powers testified
(not once but twice) for the federal government against the assailants. The
threats against him continued and Powers was soon transferred to a federal prison in Pennsylvania,
where he was threatened even after he was put into protective custody. By this
time, Powers had developed insomnia and anxiety attacks and was diagnosed by a
prison psychologist as suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Instead of giving Powers medicine, or proper mental
health therapy, officials transferred him yet again, this time to another
federal prison in New Jersey. There, Powers was
informed by officials that he would be removed from a witness
protection program and transferred back into the prison's general
population. Fearing for his life, Powers escaped. When he was recaptured two
days later he was sent toADX-Florence, part of a
sprawling prison complex near Florence, Colorado often referred to as
"ADX" or Supermax," America's most famous and secure federal
prison.
From there, things got worse. The Supermax complex, made up of different secure prison units and facilities, is laden with members of the Brotherhood and Powers was no safer than he had been anywhere else. Over and over again he was threatened at the Colorado prison. Over and over again he injured or mutilated himself in response. Over and over again he was transferred to federal government's special mental health prison facility in Missouri, diagnosed with PTSD, and given medication. Over and over again that medication was taken away when he came back to Supermax.
As he sits today in Supermax, Powers had amputated his
fingers, a testicle, his scrotum and his earlobes, has cut his Achilles tendon,
and had tried several times to kill himself. Those tattoos you see? Powers had
none until 2009, when he started mutilating with a razor and carbon paper. He
did much of this -- including biting off his pinkie and cutting skin off his
face -- in the Control Unit at ADX while prison officials consistently refused
to treat his diagnosed mental illness. Rules are rules, prison officials told
him, and no prisoners in that unit were to be given psychotropic medicine no
matter how badly they needed it.
CALL AND RESPONSE
If the Powers case were unique it would be shocking
enough. Bureau of Prison policies prohibit officials from assigning mentally
ill inmates to ADX. And the Eighth Amendment requires prison staff everywhere
to adequately diagnose and treat mentally ill prisoners, including those
prisoners, like Powers, who evidently become mentally ill while in prison. No
law or policy, at any level, would appear to sanction or condone the conduct of
those prison officials accountable for the lack of response to Powers' decline.
But Powers is not an exception. In federal court in
Denver this morning, a new class-action lawsuit was filed against the Bureau of
Prisons and the officials in charge of Supermax. The long, detailed complaint,
which reads at times like the plot from HBO's Oz, alleges not just "deliberate
indifference" on the part of those officials but outright cruelty -- even
torture -- in the face of obvious cases of mental illness at the prison. You
can read the complaint in its entirety here. The very first
paragraph of the pleading states plainly the case:
Currently, BOP [Bureau of Prisons] turns a blind eye
to the needs of the mentally ill at ADX and to deplorable conditions of
confinement that are injurious, callous and inhumane to those prisoners. No
civilized society treats its mentally disabled citizens with a comparable level
of deliberate indifference to their plight.
Paragraph 5 of the complaint alleges in more detail:
Prisoners interminably wail, scream and bang on the
walls of their cells. Some mutilate their bodies with razors, shards of glass,
writing utensils and whatever other objects they can obtain. Some swallow razor
blades, nail clippers, parts of radios and televisions, broken glass and other
dangerous objects. Others carry on delusional conversations with voices they
hear in their heads, oblivious to the reality and the danger that such behavior
might pose to themselves and anyone who interacts with them.
There are five named prisoners in the lawsuit (about
whom we'll have more detail in the next installment of this series), and its
likely that at least six other inmates named in the complaint, and perhaps many
more, will soon join the litigation. It's certain that this case will be
closely followed around the country because of what it portends for other
lawsuits challenging dubious prison isolation policies. The lawsuit does not
request money damages. Instead, it seeks an injunction that would require
prison officials to better treat the ill men in their care.
And just exactly who are the plaintiffs? Who are these
convicted felons seeking redress in federal court? All of them came to Supermax
because of violent run-ins at other federal prisons or other parts of the
sprawling ADX complex in Florence, Colorado (some of those incidents themselves
were a manifestation of their mental illness). One plaintiff got to the control
unit at Supermax after he assaulted a prison chaplain. Another, who is likely
mentally retarded, pleaded guilty to murdering another inmate. These men are
hardly noble. But the Eighth Amendment doesn't require them to be. From
paragraph 7 of the complaint:
Plaintiffs are five seriously mentally ill men
currently incarcerated at ADX. This Complaint also names as "Interested
Individuals" six other current ADX prisoners with serious mental
illnesses. ... Many of these men also suffer severe functional impairment of
their ability to attend to their own personal needs or even to exist in a world
with other people. Several of them are mentally retarded, and at least one is
functionally illiterate.
Many of these men aren't serving life sentences. Some
will soon be released after going mad in prison, after having preexisting
mental illness get worse behind bars. One of the named plaintiffs, for example,
is a man named John W. Narducci Jr. His life story is tragic, his criminal
conduct unrelenting. Many years ago, his sentencing judge ordered that he be
imprisoned in a place that could adequately tend to Narducci's "serious
psychological and emotional problems." That didn't happen. And soon he may
be free.
Two other Supermax inmates, who are not yet named
plaintiffs in the lawsuit, are so severely mentally ill that federal lawyers
have allegedly gone to court -- repeatedly -- to have them involuntarily
committed or forcibly medicated. One of these men, paragraph 57 of the
complaint contends, is scheduled to be released in October 2012 after having
had no mental health treatment for the past six years. Paragraph 58 of the
complaint focuses upon the other inmate, whom prison officials themselves have
conceded has a "mental disease or defect."
Over 150 years ago, in a book aptly titled House of the Dead, Fyodor
Dostoevsky wrote that "the degree of civilization in a society can be
judged by entering its prisons." This new lawsuit, styled Bacote
v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, enters Supermax in a way that none of us ever
has before. For these inmates, the prison is a gulag, a place of unspeakable
cruelty and state-sponsored wickedness, run by officials who ignore their own
policies and seem to revel in humiliating prisoners by depriving them of basic
human dignities.
The problem starts even before the men ever get to
Supermax. Federal policy prohibits inmates with serious mental illness from
being transferred there. But seriously mental ill inmates are nonetheless
assigned there anyway. Bureau of Prison policy next requires incoming prisoners
to be properly evaluated at ADX for mental health problems. But the complaint
alleges that these initial screenings are "only perfunctory
interviews" that typically consist of "a few questions asked in a
minute or two."
The result is that many prisoners who are
significantly mentally ill are not so diagnosed upon entering Supermax. And
even those men who are so diagnosed are often not given appropriate treatment
in the months and years that follow their arrival at the facility. For example,
the complaint alleges that prison officials violate "every major
requirement" of the following federal regulation which is designed to
govern the treatment of mentally ill prisoners at Florence:
Mental health services. During the first
30-day period in a control unit, staff shall schedule the control unit
prisoners for a psychological evaluation conducted by a psychologist. Additional
individual evaluations shall occur every 30 days. The psychologist shall
perform and/or supervise needed psychological services, psychiatric services
will be provided when necessary.Prisoners requiring prescribed psychotropic
medication are not ordinarily housed in a control unit. (Emphasis added in
complaint.)
The plaintiffs contend that "it is common for BOP
to place an incoming prisoner taking psychotropic medication in the Control
Unit, where such medication is not permitted." The result is predictable.
Paragraph 49 of the complaint:
BOP justifies this in Orwellian fashion: it
discontinues the prisoner's medication, thereby making the now non-medicated
prisoner "eligible" for placement in the Control Unit. Then, when
this newly eligible prisoner requests medication needed to treat his serious
mental illness, he is told that BOP policy prohibits the administration of
psychotropic medication to him so he should develop "coping skills"
as a substitute for medicine being withheld.
Instructing a prison confined in long-term segregation
and who has schizophrenaia or bipolar Illness to self-treat this disease with
coping skills is like demanding that a diabetic prisoner learn to
"cope" without insulin.
There is the legal requirement to provide medical
treatment for mentally ill prisoners. And then there are the practical
realities. Paragraph 63 of the complaint alleges that "only two mental
health professionals -- both psychologists -- are responsible for the mental
health of approximately 450 prisoners housed at [Supermax], many of whom have
serious chronic mental illnesses or other mental health issues, and many others
of whom experience periodic acute mental health crises."
The result, contend the prisoners, isn't just that
they don't get appropriate mental health therapy or adequate medication. Even
when they are allowed to take pills, they allege, the Supermax "staff
distributes medications on an irregular schedule that is often inconsistent
with the instructions for consumption of the medication." The distribution
of the medicine is "haphazard and sometimes reckless" and
"frequently" results in the wrong medicine being given to the
prisoners.
The complaint alleges that the "disciplinary
model at ADX is often an instrument of terror and abuse, deployed by staff
members who sometimes provoke the very conduct they punish and who lack the
training and skills necessary to manage mentally ill prisoners safely and
effectively." This is not uncommon at prisons all around the country. But
paragraph 70 of the complaint alleges specific details of the effects of such
"grossly inadequate training" on mentally ill prisoners at Supermax:
Thus, mentally ill prisoners, including those in the
throes of a psychotic episode, frequently are subjected to barbaric treatment
and physical torture more suited to the dungeons of medieval Europe than to a
modern American prison. For example, mentally ill prisoners are routinely
"four pointed" -- chained by the arms and legs to a concrete block --
often for extended periods. While chained, mentally ill prisoners often are
left to urinate and defecate on themselves, and are denied basic nutrition.
Here's another example of life for mentally ill
prisoners at Supermax. From paragraphs 71 and 72 of the complaint:
In some cases, ADX staff turn the simple (although
cruel and unusual) refusal to feed a prisoner into a deceptive hoax. ADX
prisoners, including those in four point restraints, sometimes are put on a
disciplinary "sack lunch" nutrition program in which they are fed not
standard prison trays but a paper bag containing a sandwich or two and a piece
of fruit.
Many mentally ill prisoners at ADX who are placed on
sack lunch restriction have received sacks (suitably videotaped) being
delivered to their cells. But when they open the bags (off camera) they
sometimes are empty. Through this ruse ADX staff produce false video evidence
of feeding, raising (if only for a minute) the prisoner's hope for basic
nutrition, then smash the often-chained and always hungry prisoner's hopes with
a bag of air. ...
As a result of this type of abuse, other prisoners in
nearby cells and ranges are often subject to the shrieking and suffering of
prisoners undergoing such abuse.
And from paragraph 60:
Likewise, in 2010, a severely and chronically
depressed prisoner who had attempted to kill himself a few months earlier was
escorted to the ADX [Special Housing Unit] after throwing milk at a corrections
officer. He was placed in a cell just vacated by another chronically ill
prisoner who had smeared the cell's floors, walls, bed and mattress with feces.
The prisoner was given no cleaning supplies, and was not issued a blanket,
towel or sheet. He used a roll of toilet paper in the cell to try to wipe the
feces off of a spot on the floor that was large enough to enable him to lie
down. For two days, he remained lying on that single "clean" space.
Upon information and belief, ADX staff knowingly chose
to place the seriously mentally ill prisoner in the feces-caked cell just
vacated by another seriously mentally ill inmate and left him there for two
days for the purpose of punishing him by means of another prisoner's excrement.
When there is mental health counseling, the plaintiffs
allege, it is often a "farce." From paragraph 68 of the complaint:
Members of ADX mental health staff occasionally talk
to prisoners, but even those occasional counseling sessions are almost invariably
conducted through the bars of the prisoner's cell, in the immediate presence of
a correctional officer and within earshot of other prisoners housed in the same
range. This process turns psychological counseling into a farce. ...
Although a safe, secure and private room for
psychology counseling is available within steps of the cell of virtually every
cell at ADX, staff members routinely ignore prisoner requests to discuss
serious psychological problems in private.
That is, prison mental health officials are routinely
ignoring such requests when they aren't busy performing correctional functions
-- a bit of double-duty that effectively neutralizes whatever "trust"
the mentally ill inmate may have formed with his mental health contact. It's
hard to bare your soul to your therapist and then see your therapist serving as
a prison enforcer. Paragraph 71 of the complaint makes this startling
allegation:
Upon information and belief, the BOP requires or
encourages members of the mental health staff at ADX to perform correctional
functions. Upon information and belief, such staff members have: performed
prisoner escort duty within the prison while armed with weapons, openly
brandishing those weapons in the presence of prisoners; worked shifts in the
prison's gun towers; appeared at the doorways of prisoners brandishing clubs in
an aggressive fashion; and participated in violent acts toward prisoners,
including, on at least one instance, participating in a violent cell extraction
while wearing riot police protection gear.
It is a cycle. The men become mentally ill, or become
more mentally ill, because they are not given proper medication or treatment.
And the worse the mentally ill men behave without their medication and
treatment, the worse they are treated by prison officials. For example, the
plaintiffs allege that they were threatened by prison officials for their
involvement in this case. "If you don't drop this lawsuit they will fuck
you over, trust me on this," one Supermax staffer allegedly told one of
the plaintiffs.
MEDITATIONS ON A DEFENSE
The Bureau of Prisons will soon have to respond to the
allegations of the complaint -- I promise I will write about that, too -- and
it is likely that federal lawyers will do so not on the merits but by claiming
the lawsuit must be dismissed on procedural grounds. This is how the feds have
responded virtually every other time Supermax prisoners have sought adequate
mental health care by suing officials. Fourteen times the prison has been sued
in the past nine years, the complaint alleges: more than one lawsuit a year.
Prison officials have successfully blocked the
previous litigation by arguing that the prisoners had not exhausted their
administrative remedies. This is a frequent and reasonable requirement in
lawsuits against the government, requiring potential litigants to seek legal
redress first with the agency with which they have a dispute. No federal judge
will permit a case like this to proceed to discovery -- much less a trial --
unless that judge is convinced that no remedy is available directly from the
offending government actors.
The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs have
exhausted the avenues for grievance within Supermax. From paragraph 202:
Upon information and belief, and by way of
illustration only, ADX staff members deny prisoners access for forms that BOP
requires prisoners to use to submit complaints, "lose" administrative
remedy paperwork or delay its submission so that prisoner appeals are deemed
"untimely, fail to adequately investigate prisoner complaints, and fail to
remedy obvious problems brought to BOP's attention by means of those prisoner
complaints that do evade the impediments imposed by BOP itself.
Perhaps you are wondering if the prison has an inside
"watchdog" official who might be authorized to investigate
allegations of misconduct by prison staffers. There is indeed such a person at
Supermax, the complaint alleges. Her name is Dianna Krist. Her title is "Special
Investigative Agent." But Krist appears to be married to Captain Russell
Krist, who is responsible for "all corrections functions" at
Supermax. No court in the country would countenance such an obvious conflict of
interest -- and federal policy prohibits it.
Earlier this month, I wrote in depth about another new
lawsuit brought against Supermax, Vega v. Davis, which seeks to
require prison officials to answer for the 2010 suicide of an inmate named Jose
Vega. In that case, Vega's brother seeks money damages from the feds. Vega is
not alone, either. At least five other prisoners have committed suicide at Supermax
since it opened in 1994, the complaint alleges. Things have been bad there for
a very long time, in other words, even as Supermax has been widely hailed as
the pride of the nation's penal system.
This class-action lawsuit seeks to have the federal
judiciary order specific, fundamental changes to the mental health policies in
place at the Bureau of Prisons as well as the mental health practices in play
at Supermax. More training for prison staff. More counseling and medication for
mentally ill prisoners. More effective safeguards to increase the accuracy of
diagnoses and the commitment to sustained treatment. No more torture of the
diagnosed ill. No more taunting of them.
These are not frivolous requests. They represent basic
human rights to which even our nation's convicted felons are entitled under the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Bureau of Prisons is not permitted to
treat men like animals no matter what they have done. And if federal lawyers
now say that Supermax's mentally ill prisoners -- who aren't supposed to be
there in the first place -- don't deserve answers and reform, then surely the
rest of us do. We all will be judged by the level of inhumane treatment our
prisoners receive -- for they receive that treatment in our name.
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