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By DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
November 13, 2006
A federal judge on Monday ordered sweeping mental health care
reforms for Michigan's prisons in Jackson to prevent the mistreatment
and death of inmates.
U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen suggested a prayer be said for those who have already died in custody.
"Any
earthly help comes far too late for them," he said in a scathing
opinion in that he chastised health-care providers in the prison for
collecting their pay while ignoring the needs of those in their care.
"Here
is the basic message: You are valuable providers of life-saving
services and medicines. You are not coat racks who collect government
paychecks while your work is taken to the sexton for burial," he wrote.
Coming
after a series of articles in the Free Press that examined the
worsening state of care in Michigan's prisons, including the death of a
mentally ill 21-year-old who had been left strapped naked to a concrete
table for most of four days before he died, Enslen banned the use of
non-medical punishment restraints in the prison complex in Jackson.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it was the first time a judge anywhere in the nation had banned such restraints.
Enslen
also ordered state prison officials to develop a staffing plan to
ensure there are enough psychiatrists and psychologists to care for
prisoners with mental problems at the four Jackson prisons. From his
Kalamazoo court, Enslen said psychiatrists and psychologists must begin
to make daily rounds to ensure that prisoners are adequately cared for.
Enslen
also ordered corrections officials to develop a plan to improve
coordination between mental health and medical staff at the prisons.
Referring
to Timothy Joe Souders, the 21-year-old who died in August in a
segregated prison cell in Jackson as "T.S.", the judge wrote: "God
bless T.S. and the others. There (sic) lives were short, but their
legacies may be long."
Enslen is enforcing federal oversight of
the Jackson facilities established under the Hadix case, a
class-action, civil rights lawsuit brought by prisoners in 1980 to
correct conditions that ultimately led to prison disturbances. It is
named after one of the plaintiffs, Everett Hadix.
"This is an
extraordinarily important decision," Elizabeth Alexander, of the ACLU
National Prison Project, said of Enslen's 39-page opinion. She is one
of three lawyers who represented prisoners in the long-running lawsuit
against the Michigan Department of Corrections for allegedly abusing
prisoners constitutional rights.
Corrections spokesman Leo
Lalonde said the department would defer comment until officials have
had a chance to review Enslen's decision.
If the ruling stands,
changes will be made at other state prisons, said Patricia Streeter, an
Ann Arbor lawyer who also represents prisoners in the case.
Free
Press Editorial Writer Jeff Gerritt examined the worsening state of
health care in Michigan's nearly 50 prisons for months, including the
death of Souders and the case of Lloyd Byron Martell, whose cancerous
polyp had gone untreated, who was sent home to die at age 41.
Medical
and mental health care in prisons costs taxpayers $280 million a year,
but misdiagnoses, delayed treatment and a host of other problems plague
the system, in some cases turning prison stays into death sentences,
Gerritt's reporting showed.
In an Oct. 26 column, Gerritt
revealed that prison employees and inmates who use the health care
system won't speak freely to investigators, fearing retaliation.
"If
someone in the bureaucracy, including CMS (Correctional Medical
Services, the for-profit contractor that provides health care to
inmates), is stopping you from providing necessary services in a timely
way, or stopping the patient from obtaining necessary specialist care
of medicine, you should pester the malefactors until they respond and
the services are provided," Enslen wrote.
"If they still won't
relent, you are to relay their names, including correct spellings and
addresses at which they may be arrested, to the medical monitor so
those persons may be held in contempt and jailed, if necessary.
"The
days of dead wood in the Department of Corrections are over, as are the
days of CMS intentionally delaying referrals and care for craven profit
motives."
Since the Free Press series began, Gov. Jennifer
Granholm has ordered an independent review and pledged to fix problems
in the prison health system; the Department of Corrections has revised
its four-point restraint system; and legislators have talked about
reviving the Prison Ombudsman's Office to give prisoners someone to
hear their complaints.
Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at 313-223-4490 or ashenf@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
