Mentally ill get punishment instead of treatment - Jeff Gerritt, DFP columnist

[Bozita]

Mentally ill get punishment instead of treatment
February 5, 2012 | Comments
By Jeff Gerritt
Detroit Free Press Columnist


Kevin DeMott is a mentally ill inmate with bipolar and personality disorders. Corrections officers at the Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility chained DeMott to his bed and secured a padded helmet to his head after he refused to stop banging his head against the wall, which is stained with blood. / Michigan Department of Corrections



Criminal Negligence: This is the first in an occasional series of columns and editorials on mental illness and Michigan's criminal justice and mental health care system.

On Jan. 10 of last year, corrections officers at Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility found 19-year-old Kevin DeMott banging his head against a blood-stained cell wall.

Diagnosed with bipolar disorder when he was 11, inmate No. 608233 had languished in solitary for four months, sometimes without the psychotropic medication his psychiatrist prescribed. Normally 5-foot-10 and 171 pounds, he had lost 25 pounds.

Officers ordered DeMott to stop banging his head, but he continued.

After DeMott told officers who tried to restrain him that they would have to kill him, he was hit twice with pepper spray, then manacled in belly chains and leg irons, according to a critical incident report. Soon after, prison authorities charged him with disobeying a direct order, resulting in 30 days' loss of privileges.

Too often, the Department of Corrections punishes instead of treats mental illness. Michigan's 32 prisons hold thousands of mentally ill inmates, including as many as 200 isolated in segregation cells, where they are locked up for 23 hours a day, or longer, unable to participate in treatment programs, and sometimes cut off from the medications prescribed to help manage their illnesses.

more...
http://www.freep.com/article/20120205/OPINION02/202050442/PUNISHMENT-INSTEAD-OF-TREATMENT-Hundreds-of-Michigan-s-mentally-ill-inmates-languish-in-solitary-confinement-lost-in-a-prison-system-ill-equipped-to-treat-them

[Skittles]

1. money for wars, but not to help the mentally ill

it is a fucking DISGRACE

[BlueToTheBone]

2. Thanks again Raygun

This is a direct result of his closing mental institutions all over the country.

[Control-Z]

3. Not only is he not being helped

he is being traumatized. This makes me sick, poor kid.

[xfundy]

4. He is in a great deal of pain.

Mental anguish is infinitely worse than physical pain. Remember, the ability to feel physical pain depends upon the brain. When it originates there it's amplified many times over.

To treat someone like this is horrendous, but to do it to someone with a diagnosed mental illness, and deny him his medicine, is cruel and unusual and should NEVER be tolerated in this nation.

And then to punish him for "not obeying" an order brings this down to the level of absolute sadism.

Mental illness can strike anyone, at any time. I know this from my own experience with major depression. Before I lost everything, including my reasonably successful business, my home, the money I'd put aside for retirement, and 99% of my possessions, I'd been ignorant enough to consider those with mental illness lazy or worse.

If anyone cares enough to educate themselves just a little, you can read my journal pages, as I've been trying to write a little each day to go back over my own experience in hopes of putting it behind me for good. In my case it was a chemical imbalance. I am thankful that I had only the depression, not the bipolar illness, as bipolar and other illnesses that affect the brain, can be even worse.

The brain is an organ, as surely as is the heart, lungs, liver, stomach, spleen, etc., and is susceptible to illness as are the other organs. There is no special "punishment" visited upon anyone.

Those who can sit by, never trying to understand or be open-minded about this very real illness need to know that it can happen to you or someone you love before you know it. And if you don't bother to speak up about the heinous treatment of those who suffer from what is, indeed, a serious illness that can and does cause untold misery and death, no one is likely to speak up for you or your loved one in a similar situation.

And, if anyone has been feeling down for more than a couple of weeks or is thinking about suicide, please contact your city or county mental health office; most of them operate on a sliding scale basis, and some may be free of charge. If you are in such pain that your thoughts of suicide are unbearable, please call 911 immediately.

Also, if anyone wants or needs to talk, please feel free to DUmail me at any time. I've been through a hell much worse than any fundamentalist could threaten with, and I want to help make sure others are spared that horrible existence.

x

[Leftist Agitator]

12. And I quote:

"If you are in such pain that your thoughts of suicide are unbearable, please call 911 immediately."

You forgot to mention that if you do this, you will be incarcerated in either a jail cell, or a mental institution. If you are incarcerated in a mental institution, you will not be released until a psychiatrist decides to release you, which will likely take many, many months or years. In fact, you may never be released.

Also, if you are charged with a crime as a result of your interaction with the police (and you most likely will be), you will have a criminal record for the rest of your life. If you are incarcerated in a mental institution, you will be forced to disclose that fact when applying for jobs, which will likely result in being denied employment. Moreover, you will not be allowed to purchase or own a firearm.

I understand why you would advise people with suicidal ideation to call 911, but people need to be aware that doing so can utterly destroy one's life. Suicidal thoughts accompanying depression are not treated like other medical conditions. An ambulance will not respond to such a call, the police will. And the police have next to zero training dealing with mental illness.

Anyone who would willingly invite an encounter with the police will most assuredly regret their error.

[Confusious]

5. All because we can't tax the "blood sucking leeches"

oops, "job creators." sorry

[Roy Rolling]

6. Just in case someone doesn't understand

Confinement does not cure diseases of the brain, it is cruel and just plain stupid. Would it cure someone with diabetes or emphysema if they were locked up and shackled?

[n2doc]

7. We torture the weak among us

This is perhaps the most extreme example. But in big and little ways, America is a torture state.

There is absolutely no reason for this, other than a few powerful people get lots of money from the system as it now stands, and many people can be brainwashed into supporting it because they, deep down inside, want to see other suffer more than they.

[allan01]

8. re: Mentally ill get punishment instead of treatment - Jeff Gerritt, DFP columnist

Didnt help when dear old Ronald Reagon as governor of California ordered closed , mental hospitals , released patients to the streets and local government.New York state did these very "asutarty" measure cuts 20 years ago, and it cost them more to put the programs back in rather than leave em in place.

[prairierose]

9. This is one of the most barbaric aspects of...

this so-called "civilized, christian" country. If we had universal, single-payer healthcare, the mentally ill would be able to get medical treatment and help. But our leaders, for the last 30 years, have preferred to pretend that mentally ill people do not exist and they are on their own. Our leaders think the mentally ill are better off living on the streets and suffering and hungry , helpless or criminal. Throwing them out into the streets ensures that many of them will die sooner and no longer be a burden on society.

This kind of barbarity occurs everyday in this country but most people prefer not to see it or hear of it. Thank you Jeff Gerritt for dragging this subject into the light.

[NCDawg]

10. Mental Health Reform is the cause here....

I'm a LONGTIME lurker, with this is my inaugural post. Having served my entire career in the public sector, the last decade of which has been in a state mental health system, I can assure you that the model employed in Michigan, North Carolina and numerous other states across this nation, is flawed and beyond repair. This isn't the first time that the ever cycling government system of build up, only to tear down and rebuild again, has impacted mental health services. In fact, mental health systems have had to evolve rapidly in the fast paced realm of modern healthcare. Unfortunately, there is always "someone" that believes they can run the system better and cheaper by funneling monies designed to improve state mental health systems, away to "private", usually for profit community programs. Sounds good, right? But not before you apply the "not in my bakyard" contempt that follows community mental health programs. Likewise, the stigma that follows the mentally ill doesn't lend itself to photo-op moments, so those wonderful state and federal legislators rarily find the time or the compulsion to place these concerns on anyones list of governance priorities,...until someone is captured as we saw in the article herein. This is truly sad and will only get worse as the VA's will soon flood with CHI's, TBI's and PTSD's, making the post Vietnam experience look like a walk in the park.

Once all the ED beds and jailhouse cells are full of angry, homeless, confused, indigent, mentally ill former soldiers, the public outcry will be to build more state institutions to help these poor souls...legislators will do what they are programmed to do and throw lots of money at a problem they fail to understand, often use as a funding source when financial times are tough and the cycle begins anew. This is the pathetic reality of this countries mental health system. It's all about $$$ and whose getting it, or in this particular example, whose not!

[sad sally]

11. While the article below is good news, from what I've read there are only 120 beds in this facility

Which begs the question, what about the other tens of thousands of veterans who aren't treated? Where do they end up? As evidenced by past wars, Americans are proud to send fellow citizens off to fight enemies "over there," but once they're injured and need medical help for the rest of their lives, their hero status declines. Brain injuries, unlike other wounds, are hidden; those inflicted are too often also hidden.

Feb 06, 2012
A state-of-the-art Traumatic Brain Injury Department opened Jan. 27 inside the Defense Department's new $1.03 billion hospital at Fort Belvoir, Va., Joshua L. Wick reported for the Army News Service. The unit at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital consolidates the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center TBI services among itself and Walter Reed-Bethesda in Maryland, combining medical, psychological, educational, and physical resources in a centralized clinic, according to his report.

"I cannot imagine a more wonderful setting for us to be able to launch this program and certainly have it serve as a springboard as we move forward with comprehensive behavioral health and physiological health for our servicemembers," Army Col. Susan Annicelli, the hospital's commander.

Wick's report quoted Dr. Heechin Chae, chief of the department, as saying the department "prides itself on the outstanding clinical care and teamwork that allows the team to craft and coordinate treatment plans for each patient. Our TBI clinic can manage the full spectrum of acquired brain injury, from mild to severe."

http://ohsonline.com/articles/2012/02/06/new-army-hospital-tbi-treatment-unit-now-in-operation.aspx?admgarea=news?du

How many veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer brain injuries?

Just how many troops are affected is hard to know. Sections of the government have released numbers ranging from 50,000 (Department of Defense) to 115,000 (the Pentagon), while the Brain Injury Association of America estimates the number at 360,000 and RAND corporation has suggested it could be as high as 400,000.

Contributing to the uncertainty are the facts that TBI is difficult to diagnose, and that some soldiers may be reluctant to be diagnosed. The Pentagon found that 60 percent of the soldiers who suffered from TBI symptoms refused help because they worried unit leaders would treat them differently, or that the condition would prevent them from getting jobs as police officers and firefighters after they got out of the service.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/wheresoldierscomefrom/traumatic-brain-injury.php?du

[Lost-in-FL]

13. For democrats. But if you are a mentally ill republican, then one can run for office.

In a serious note, great article. Sad to read the truth sometimes, specially about things we tend to overlook. It is a shame

[cbayer]

14. A national and worsening tragedy. Shameful.

[kevdem21]

15. This is my story it is now on NBC news.

This is a link to a Today's show story with Ted Koppel and me.
[link:http://www.today.com/video/today/51286857#51286857|
The main story is on the NBC Rock Center at 10:00 pm tonight.

[kevdem21]

16. If you believe in this cause read this post.

I am Kevin DeMott. I went through the horrific prison system in Michigan. I was released from prison 4 Months ago. The prison system has not changed, rather they released me to try to shut up all of my supporters. It didn't work. We started a Non-Profit Organization called "Citizens For Prison Reform".

If you care about what is happening, please visit our websites posted below to see how you can get involved. Share this with anyone you think has a heart. Thank you for caring about this issue.

Kevin
Citizens for Prison Reform
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"
-Martin Luther King
Website: http://www.micpr.org/
Blog site: http://citizensforprisonreform.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Citizens-for-Prison-Reform/171253319587634
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MichiganCPR