Several individuals who work for the federal Bureau of Prisons contacted me privately this week because they were unhappy about the blog that I posted Monday that described allegations about mentally ill prisoners being abused and neglected inside the BOP’s SuperMax prison.

These were employees who either knew me personally or had read my book, The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison, which is based on a year that I spent off-and-on inside what then was a BOP maximum security Kansas prison between 1987 to 1989.

 They called to remind me about what sort of inmate gets housed at the SuperMax and to complain because I stated that reporters have not been allowed to see inside our nation’s most secure prison. I was told that some reporters have been taken on a limited tour inside it and I also was told that 60 Minutes had done a story about the SuperMax.

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My friend, Bob Carolla, at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, asked me to make you aware of World Mental Health Day, which is today – October 10th.  That also happens to be my wedding anniversary!  I’m happy  to promote World Mental Health Day and even happier to be celebrating another year with my fabulous partner, Patti, who is as concerned about improving our mental health care system as I am. I’m spending our anniversary this year in Ann Arbor, Michigan, speaking to a NAMI group, but I will be home soon to celebrate. 

Taking on the World: Free Global  Movie Screening

 

On World Mental Health Day, NAMI will participate in the Global Web Screening of Hidden Pictures, and award-winning new film about global mental health. Tune in any time on Oct. 10 at http://bit.ly/hidpics to watch Hidden Pictures and join a global dialogue about mental health issues.

By Bob Carolla, NAMI Director of Media Relations

“Think globally, act locally.”

The slogan has long been associated with the environmental movement, but also applies to efforts to improve the lives of people living with mental illness. Common issues exist among nations and peoples, as well as differences.

In observance of World Mental Health Day, Thurs., Oct. 10, a free online Global Screening Event will be held for Hidden Pictures: A Personal Journey into Global Mental Health by Seattle filmmaker, physician and mental health advocate. Delaney Ruston, M.D.

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More horror stories are surfacing about prisoners with mental illnesses allegedly being abused and neglected inside the federal government’s most secretive maximum security penitentiary.

Consider the case of prisoner Richie Hill who became convinced diamond rings were hidden under his skin. Hill, who has been diagnosed with a severe mental illness, began scratching holes into his own flesh with his fingernails to remove the diamonds. Those open wounds soon became infected because he smeared feces on himself. At one point, a worm was spotted living in one of his open wounds. When Hill was finally taken to the federal Bureau of Prison’s hospital in Springfield, Missouri, the doctors initially considered amputating his legs because of a severe staph infection.

It’s against BOP’s own rules to house anyone with a severe mental illness at its Super Max penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, yet the federal government is doing exactly that, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed in Denver.

Prison officials claimed Hill was faking mental illness.

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FROM MY FILES FRIDAY: I’d already decided to reprint this blog when news broke yesterday about a woman who attempted to drive into the White House grounds and then directed her speeding car toward the U.S. Capitol. Although she was unarmed, she certaintly can be seen in news footage driving dangerously. Cars can be deadly weapons and the point of this blog is not to debate whether the officers who shot her used unnecessary force. {After last month’s shootings at the Washington Naval Yard, the police have been on high alert.} But I noticed that within hours after the woman was fatally shot, stories started to circulate that she had a mental illness. At this writing, that hasn’t been confirmed, but if it is, will the public view her death differently? I think so.

FATAL SHOOTINGS AND MENTAL ILLNESS: BLAMING THE VICTIM, first published April 22, 2013.

If a schoolchild overturns a desk during an epileptic seizure and it hits a classmate and breaks that student’s foot, no one demands that the child with epilepsy be put into juvenile detention and punished. However, if that schoolchild has a mental illness and accidentally overturns a desk, injuring someone, that child is sent before a juvenile court judge for punishment because of  his/her actions.

This observation came from Summit County Juvenile Court Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio who spoke last Friday during a Mental Health and Criminal Justice Symposium held in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. I gave the symposium’s keynote address.

Judge Teodosio’s point was that our society views mental illnesses differently from other physical illnesses and frequently holds persons with severe mental illnesses responsible for getting sick.

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Sixty Minutes aired a segment Sunday about schizophrenia and how our jails and prisons are becoming mental asylums. It included footage from inside the Cook County Jail and an interview with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

I met Sheriff Dart more than a year ago when I spoke in Chicago and he assured me that he was determined to focus attention on the plight of severely mentally ill inmates being housed in his jail.  

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