VICE reported finding  “horrible physical conditions—from pests to raw sewage” in a 2019 story spotlighting conditions inside  the federal detention center in Manhattan.  (ACLU photo.)

(3-16-20) Like cruise ships and nursing homes, jails and prisons are prime breeding grounds for deadly outbreaks of the coronavirus. So, I was shocked this week when the Treatment Advocacy Center’s CEO John Snook relayed a message to me about how the federal Bureau of Prisons is reportedly charging inmates for soap.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimated that 705,600 mentally ill adults were incarcerated in state prisons, 78,800 in federal prisons and 479,900 in local jails. That was in 2006 and, since then, the numbers have been growing. It is generally accepted that 383,000 prisoners across the country have a serious mental illness.

Shortly after the Covid-19 virus began making headlines, I received a letter from a prisoner being held in the BOP’s Administrative Maximum Facility (the ADMAX), the most secure unit in our nation located in Florence, Colorado.

Every three months, he explained, prisoners are moved into new isolation cells for security reasons. He was moved abruptly without explanation recently, being sent to a different cell on a Thursday. He immediately asked for cleaning supplies but was refused. Minimal cleaning supplies are dispensed on Wednesdays at the ADMAX, he wrote, so he had to wait even though his cell was filthy.

“When I entered, I turned to assess the damage and sweat needed to scrub my new cell without detergent, nor much needed disinfectant. I alway look at the toilet/sink comb when entering a random cell since it’s usually the nastiest thing in need of cleaning. Then the shower, where some guys masturbate, blow their nose, spit, piss, etc., and rarely clean, so the shiny stainless steel is buried in months and years of fossilized slime. Dog pound kennels are hygienically more human than our ADX cells. Not that animals deserve less. It’s just bewildering how some Americans demand better treatment for another species, than they do for our own.

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(3-13-20) From My Files Friday – In late 2016, I posted a blog about retired Air Force Brigadier General Gary Ambrose who’d received an award for leadership and advocacy in my home state of Virginia.  During his acceptance speech, the general spoke eloquently about his son, Brad. The general continued to advocate after receiving the award, overseeing the jail diversion program in Fairfax.  

“Our full time mission became keeping him safe and alive.”

by Gary Ambrose:

Like many others, our family became mental health advocates by necessity.

We were advocates for Brad, who, for 17 years, lived with paranoid schizophrenia and the voices that urged him to take his own life.

Brad was intelligent, articulate, well-read, and charismatic. We shared a sense of humor. Of course, we loved him. But more than that– we liked him. He was our son, but he was also a friend. During “good times,” when he was medication compliant, he was a pleasant companion. 

He was a peer mentor in the NAMI Peer To Peer program and the first chairman of the Mental Health Subcommittee of the Fairfax County Re-entry Council. In the spring of 2014, he was the first person with mental illness to be highlighted on Channel 4’s “Changing Minds” segment. He was passionate about improving life for people with mental illness.

He had potential.

But, he had also spent many of the 17 years of his illness cycling through the healthcare and legal systems, and was, much of the time, a danger to himself.

Brad’s illness took him from us in 2014.

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Seriously mentally ill prisoners held by the federal Bureau of Prisons are no longer supposed to be housed in isolation cells such as this example.

(3-09-20) Government advisory committees do exactly that. They advise. There’s no guarantee anyone will listen. Agencies have their own experts and priorities, and so do the political appointees appointed by the president to run them.

I understood this when I was appointed to serve on the newly created Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee (ISMICC), which was created by Congress to foster collaboration and communication between the nine federal departments and agencies that deal with more than a hundred mental health/substance abuse programs.

With support from my fellow non-federal board members, I have focused on the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and our panel’s recommendation that it find ways to reduce long term isolation and restraints when dealing with seriously mentally ill patients.

While the Justice Department was required to participate in ISMICC, Congress didn’t mention the BOP. This was unfortunate because the federal prison system houses 175,315 prisoners, including several who have serious mental illnesses (most notably Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.)

Sadly, the BOP has a dismal record when it comes to its treatment of seriously mentally ill inmates. In July 2017, the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General found that on average, BOP prisoners with serious mental illnesses were confined about 896 consecutive days, or about 29 months, in so-called “special management units (isolation)” between 2008 and 2015.  Incredibly, 13% of these inmates were released directly into the community after spending an average of 29 consecutive months in seclusion cells with minimal treatment.  A study by the Marshall Project a year later questioned claims by the BOP that it was enacting changes to improve mental health care and took issue with the BOP’s claim that only three percent of its prisoners had a mental illness. The general accepted statistic is that 16 percent of incarcerated individuals have a diagnosed mental illness.

Twelve of my fellow non-federal ISMICC members joined me (only one didn’t sign on) in asking the BOP Director to begin participating in ISMICC meetings. The then-director agreed but he ended up being replaced last year and the BOP delegate missed our last two meetings.

Undaunted, thirteen of us sent a second letter requesting BOP participation to its new director, Kathleen Hawk Sawyer. 

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(3-6-20) I’m a big fan of Clubhouses, especially Fountain House in New York City, which is the granddaddy of them all. So I am thrilled to be speaking in Miami this weekend at a fundraiser for The Key Clubhouse of South Florida.

It was founded in 2008 by a grassroots group of family members and a young person with lived experience who wanted to provide a warm and safe place for individuals with mental illnesses where they could get help reintegrating into the community. This is what I like best about Clubhouses – nearly all are created by local advocates who are determined to help others and they are run by persons with lived experience!

It took two years to raise enough money to open the doors to its first Clubhouse in downtown Miami for 10 members. Word quickly spread and by 2013, the Clubhouse had moved into a larger building that included a culinary unit and dining room. The goal of Sunday’s event is to raise funds for an even larger facility to serve more members.

The folks at Key Clubhouse have done a fabulous job in designing useful programs. They offer an accredited “recovery through work” program that helps those who are able improve their lives through meaningful employment. They offer pre-employment skills building, a wellness program, social activities, assistance accessing medical services and housing and daily, personal counseling.

If your community doesn’t have a Clubhouse, it should!

Christine Dimattei, a reporter for WLRN radio in Miami, the local NPR affiliate, did a four minute interview with me, during which I quickly described how Miami has transformed itself from the hellhole that I describe in my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, into a model system that is being emulated across the country.

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