Lawsuit Alleges Cruel and Unusual Conditions for Mentally Ill in Montana Prison

“He spreads feces on the walls of his cell to keep bad spirits away.”

<a href="http://www.cor.mt.gov/msp/default.mcpx">Montana.gov

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A disability rights advocacy group sued Montana officials this week in federal court for allegedly placing mentally ill prisoners in extreme forms of solitary confinement for months and years at a time, often because the prisoners displayed symptoms of their illness or expressed suicidal thoughts. The prison’s psychiatrist also accused prisoners with well-documented mental illnesses of using their symptoms to get attention and ceased giving them medication, according to the lawsuit. 

Disability Rights Montana, a federally mandated civil rights protection and advocacy group says that Montana State Prison’s treatment of prisoners amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment” and is unconstitutional. The group filed the lawsuit after conducting a year-long investigation with the ACLU of Montana. According to the Associated Press, the groups hope that the matter can be resolved through negotiations with the state, not through legal action. Prison officials are “taking the allegations seriously” according to the AP. Judy Beck, a spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Corrections, told Mother Jones that the state would file its response within 60 days and could not comment.

According to the lawsuit, prisoners are subject to solitary confinement in spaces that sometimes have blacked-out windows, as well as “behavior management plans”—whereby a prisoner is put in 24-hour solitary confinement with only a mattress, blanket, a suicide smock, and nutraloaf, a tasteless, controversial food product that civil rights groups have alleged is unconstitutional. (In 2003, the Montana Supreme Court also ruled that certain behavior management plans are illegal.) “One prisoner with serious mental illness explained that being placed in solitary confinement makes him feel like a young child locked in a closet with nothing to do and, as a result, he spreads feces on the walls of his cell to keep bad spirits away,” the complaint reads.

In a case outlined in the lawsuit, a 50-year-old prisoner sentenced “guilty but mentally ill” in 2006, was placed in a state hospital and diagnosed with schizophrenia. At the state hospital, staff allegedly described him as “polite, friendly, cooperative, and socializing appropriately with staff and peers.” But after he was suspected of stealing another patient’s jewelry, he was transferred to prison and placed in solitary confinement. In 2012, the prison’s doctor allegedly discontinued the prisoner’s antipsychotic medication, because he believed the man was “malingering.” The prisoner told mental health staff that he wanted to cry when placed in “the hole” because he did not “do hole time well,” according to the lawsuit.

In another case outlined in the lawsuit, a 43-year-old prisoner with a very low IQ score of 78, was transferred to prison from a community group home. There, he was placed in solitary confinement for more than three years for acts that the plaintiffs allege were related to his mental illness, such as “banging his head until it bled on his cell door while asking for real food instead of nutraloaf, crying and saying people on the floor were talking to him[, and] attempting suicide,” according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs claim that the doctor also stopped giving the prisoner medication, on the basis that he was “simply malingering,” and “laughed at” the prisoner after he complained about losing his medication.

In 2011, a United Nations specialist on torture said that solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days should be abolished. He also said it shouldn’t be used at all on people with mental disabilities. According to the ACLU, “Isolation creates and exacerbates symptoms of mental illness in prisoners, undermining successful re-entry into society and jeopardizing public safety.”

A 33-year-old prisoner—with a long history of self-harm—who was mentioned in the lawsuit was transferred from the state hospital to prison, allegedly to keep him from harming himself. There, he was placed in solitary confinement for “significant periods of time.” In July 2011, he told mental health staff that he had “been in locked housing for way too long” and was worried about doing “something stupid.” In August, when he was taken out of solitary, he murdered another prisoner and was sentenced to life without parole.

About five years earlier, prior to being placed in extended solitary confinement, he filled out a “treatment planning worksheet” on how staff could help him get better at the prison’s Mental Health Treatment Unit, the plaintiffs claim. The prisoner wrote: “Groups with homework. Give me stuff to do so I can keep myself and my mind busy” and “be there to talk to me when I’m having problems.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate