Officials at the nation’s highest-security prison are ignoring their own newly created policies regarding mentally ill prisoners as they fail to treat those who carve holes in their bodies with chicken bones and smear feces on themselves, a new filing in a federal lawsuit says.
According to an amended complaint filed recently in U.S. District Court in Denver, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons also is misdiagnosing mentally ill inmates to sidestep treatment obligations at the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum prison, or Supermax, in Florence.
The 14 prisoner plaintiffs are asking the court to declare that the diagnosis and treatment of prisoners at Supermax violates the bureau’s own standards and the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. The plaintiffs, represented by the Colorado-based Center for Legal Advocacy, are asking the federal court to monitor Supermax’s treatment of mentally ill patients.
Messages left with the bureau and plaintiff attorney Ed Aro of Denver have not been returned.
The bureau and attorneys for the plaintiffs have been negotiating a settlement to the original lawsuit. The bureau has implemented new programs to meet the needs of inmates and transferred dozens of mentally ill inmates at Supermax to other federal prisons. But the new filing says it isn’t enough.
Inadequate care
The 200-page amended complaint, filed three years after the original lawsuit was filed in 2012, names new plaintiff inmates of the facility that houses 425 of the nation’s most troublesome or dangerous inmates, including Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and many terrorists.
Austere conditions at Supermax, including chronic isolation, have worsened the mental conditions of already-sick inmates and triggered mental illnesses in others, the lawsuit says. Many severely mentally ill inmates have not been diagnosed, the lawsuit says.
“Many prisoners at (Supermax) interminably wailed, screamed and banged on the walls of their cells. Some mutilated their bodies with razors, shards of glass, sharpened chicken bones, writing utensils, and whatever other objects they could obtain,” the lawsuit says.
The complaint alleges the Bureau of Prisons has failed to follow its own recently enacted policies and is holding seriously mentally ill inmates at Supermax instead of transferring them to new facilities.
They have “manipulated diagnoses” to avoid treatment obligations, and even when inmates are sent to the new facilities, they do not get adequate care, the lawsuit says.
“Even the ‘improved’ version of mental health care at (Supermax) is a still a small Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” the lawsuit says.
Many psychotic inmates get only so-called telepsychiatry services in 15-minute sessions while their hands and feet are chained and they are surrounded by officers wielding batons. They are given books to study, including “Anger Management for Dummies” and “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.”
Some inmates “in the throes of a psychotic episode” were subjected to “barbaric” treatment, chained by their wrists and ankles onto a concrete platform, where they were left in their feces, it says.
The bureau also has failed to provide outpatient treatment services, crisis intervention services, a residential program and a psychiatric inpatient program, the lawsuit says.
Different conduct
Percy Barron, who was being treated for severe depression, sought emergency psychology services according to a plan implemented after the lawsuit was filed. But he was ignored for hours after he made the request and attempted suicide. He was discovered in the act and was disciplined for attempting suicide, the lawsuit says.
The mentally ill are less capable of abiding by prison rules because of their conditions, the lawsuit says.
“As a result, prisoners with chronic mental illness end up in a seemingly endless cycle, doing their best to maintain clear conduct for months or years, then getting returned to the starting line for a transgression,” the lawsuit says.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, kmitchell@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kirkmitchell
