by TChris

Our prisons too often house the mentally ill, who need treatment, not warehousing. And too often prisoners are subjected to conditions that would impair the mental health of even the most stable person. Exposing the mentally ill to those conditions leads to tragic consequences, as illustrated by the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

The box is the most severe punishment in prison: the final threat, the ultimate time out. It is a small barren chamber set apart from the general population with a concrete floor, a steel door and no clock to mark the time. The essential quality of the box is isolation -- a gloved hand passes food through a slot in the door; a caseworker's muffled voice filters through the holes in a small Plexiglas window. Inmates are allowed few personal possessions. Lights are never fully extinguished. It is four walls for 23 hours a day -- a psychologically punishing experience by design. For people like Jessica Roger, it can also be an incubator of psychosis.

The linked article tells Jessica Roger's story -- a story that has become too common, of a mentally ill inmate who was "punished for exhibiting symptoms of illness that the system has failed to treat." Jessica attempted suicide in the box four times before being sent to a prison hospital, where she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and other mental illnesses.

Jessica was returned to complete her punishment in the small airless cell that had broken her. Within days, she again attempted suicide.

She succeeded on her last attempt. The linked article uses Jessica's story to illuminate the broader problem: society's reliance on the criminal justice system to address the poor and homeless who suffer from untreated mental illness. As the article notes: "Today some 250,000 Americans with mental illness live in prisons, the nation's primary supplier of mental-health services."