As a 2014-2015 'Soros Justice Fellow', investigative journalist Alisa Roth spent a year studying the plight of mentally ill prisoners in the U.S. Criminal Justice System. Roth visited jails and prisons in New York, Illinois, California, Georgia, and Oklahoma. She also interviewed mentally ill subjects and their families; consulted experts; perused medical and jail records; inspected court reports and other public documents; and read newspaper articles, books, and other source materials.
Alisa Roth
Roth found that almost every correctional facility in the country has a large number of prisoners with mental illness. Mental illness is a term that includes a wide array of disorders that affect a person's mood, thinking, and behavior. Examples are anxiety disorders; addictive behaviors; bipolar disorder; and schizophrenia.
Diagnosing and treating mental illness is difficult because there is no definitive test, and finding reliable drugs is often a matter of trial and error. Medical professionals have found that it's difficult to find the correct dosages; medications sometimes stop working; and there can be serious side effects.
Mental illness is a challenge even in the civilian community - with insufficient treatment centers and the like - but the problem is exacerbated in jails and prisons. Mentally ill people who are incarcerated generally get little or no treatment, and - upon release - are often sicker than when they went in.
One reason for this is the difficulty of diagnosing mental illness in the jail population. Some institutions - especially large ones - often try. In Cook County Jail in Chicago, for instance, a social worker oversees intake exams for new arrivals, looking for clues about mental health. This is frequently difficult, since mentally ill detainees often don't know - or don't want to talk about - their mental health issues. One tactic is to talk about medical problems, like blood pressure or diabetes, and ask, "Where did you get help?" The individual might then accidently mention a psychiatric hospital.
Administrators at Cook County Jail assert that - with recent improvements in the facility - a mentally ill prisoner can now get individual therapy, group therapy, and special housing.....and that many of the institute's corrections officers are trained to work with people with mental illness. This is not typical, however, of most prisons in the country.
Cook County Jail
A therapy session
*****
The author was permitted to observe the Twin Towers Correctional Facility at the Los Angeles County Jail, which is one of the biggest providers of psychiatric care in the country. The Twin Towers Facility houses the sickest inmates in Los Angeles - people who can't share a cell with another person and who aren't permitted to wear regulation jail attire - baggy pants and a scrub shirt. Instead, the mentally ill prisoners wear shapeless smocks made of quilted cloth that is supposed to be indestructible, so they can't be torn or tied into a noose. Patients are not offered any therapy, and mental health care consists entirely of medication and medication management.
The Twin Towers Correctional Facility
Inside the Twin Towers
When Roth peered into one of the cells in the Twin Towers Facility, she saw a prisoner wrapped in a dark blue blanket-cocoon lying on the lower bunk. The inmate's unit was covered in feces, which was spattered on the edge of the top bunk; rubbed on the floor; smeared in circles on the walls, and used as paste to stick sheets of paper towels to the wall - like a row of artworks. This wasn't an isolated incident, as many mentally ill prisoners 'decorate' their cells with feces. Even worse, one corrections officer described a prisoner who ate his feces, then drank water from the toilet.
A prisoner in his cell
Roth notes that prisoners in the Twin Towers are only allowed out of their cells in handcuffs or handcuffs and leg shackles - and some refuse to come out of their cells at all. These restrictions are necessary because corrections officers are not medically trained specialists schooled to manage the mentally ill; instead, they're law enforcement personnel taught to maintain safety.
A prisoner being handcuffed
A prisoner chained to a table
The Los Angeles County Jail does have a hospital unit, called the Forensic Inpatient Unit (FIP), which is a licenced acute psychiatric ward for the very sickest inmates. Unfortunately, the FIP doesn't have nearly enough beds to accomodate all the prisoners who belong there.
*****
The most debilitating form of incarceration in any corrections institute is solitary confinement - the practice of keeping a person alone in a small cell for 23 or more hours per day for weeks, months, years, or even decades at a time. Prisoners are generally placed in solitary for bad behavior.....and people with severe mental illness are among the most likely prisoners to end up there. Being alone and cut off from human interaction can cause or aggravate symptoms of psychosis such as hallucinations, paronoia, sleeplessness, and self-harm.....and mental health treatment in 'the hole' is minimal or non-existent.
A solitary confinement cell
The author mentions Brian Nelson, who spent 23 years in solitary confinement (mostly at the now closed supermax Tamms Correctional Center in Illinois) after being convicted of accessory to murder. Other harsh disciplinary measures used in prisons are hog-tying or cutting off water to cells.....and again the mentally ill are the most likely recipients.
There are many stories about the shoddy mental health care that people get in jails and prisons. In a 2017 class action lawsuit, prisoners at the federal penitentiary in Lewisberg, Pennsylvania claimed that the Bureau of Prisons provides little one-on-one counseling and that the 'supposed' counseling mostly consists of conversations through cell doors, which could easily be overheard by others. Even worse: "care for people with mental illness at Lewisburg consist of staff passing out coloring books and puzzles and calling it 'treatment'."
The author found similiar stories in almost all the instutions she investigated. The reasons prisons can't effectively deal with mentally ill people include:
- Overcrowding. A large population of very sick people are jammed into facilities that weren't designed for so many individuals.
- Lack of staff. There aren't enough medical personnel and corrections officers because the working conditions are difficult; prisons are often in inconvenient or remote locations; and the pay is low.
It's also important to note that race and poverty overlap with mental illness in the criminal justice system, creating a downward trajectory. The result is that once an indigent mentally ill person is arrested, he/she can't make bail, can't cope with being incarcerated, becomes disruptive, gets a longer sentence, becomes sicker....and so on. It's a vicious cycle. This is especially troubling among African-Americans and Hispanics, because they make up a large percentage of the prison population.
*****
To illustrate her points about mentally ill people in the criminal justice system, the author presents a number of case studies. I'll give some examples.
- In March, 2006 former firefighter and family man Bryan Allen Sanderson was arrested for indecent exposure in a South Carolina motel. At the time of his arrest Sanderson was manic and hearing voices in his head. Being in jail made Sanderson's symptoms worse, and he smeared feces around his cell and threatened officers and other prisoners. Sanderson was put in solitary confinement where he continued to cause trouble by throwing his food instead of eating it. Finally, five months after he was arrested, Sanderson appeared before a judge and accepted a plea for time served. However, the ordeal and its aftermath resulted in Sanderson losing his family, his livelihood, and his middle-class life.
- In 2012 Darren Rainey was serving a sentence for cocaine possession in a Florida prison. Being diagnosed with schizophrenia, Rainey was housed in a unit for mentally ill inmates. When corrections officers found that Rainey had smeared his cell with feces he was taken to a 'special shower' to clean up. At 160 degrees, the water temperature in the shower far exceeded the legal limit of 120 degrees. The officers left Rainey in the scalding water for two hours, by which time he was dead and his reddened skin was peeling 'like fruit roll-ups.' Prisoners and ex-convicts claim that abuse like this is the norm (though it doesn't usually go as far as murder).
Darren Rainey Illustration by Mark Espinosa
- Edgar Coleman, a former football player and teacher, was arrested by the University of Minnesota police over 200 times between 1996 and 2012....and that doesn't include the myriad times he was just shooed along. Coleman would stay in the school's buildings at night and steal food from buffet lines. Sometimes the police would take Coleman to jail, sometimes to a homeless shelter, but he was soon back on the streets. Coleman is dubbed a 'super-utilizer' - a person who cycles in and out of jail, getting re-arrested shortly after being released.
*****
There may be a light at the end of a (very long) tunnel since some communities are trying to improve conditions for mentally ill prisoners, including Cook Country and Los Angeles (mentioned above) and Riker's Island in New York City - which is increasing the number of special mental health units called the 'Program to Accelerate Clinical Effectiveness (PACE).'
Mental Health Unit at Riker's Island
According to Roth, what may really turn the tide "is the consensus that what we're doing is wrong. Whether we're talking about the people who are locked up and their families, or the corrections officers, or the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, the judges, the doctors — you name it. They're in agreement that what we're doing is not working, that it's counterproductive, that we need to change. We need to figure out how to come to a consensus about what that change looks like, but at least we're all on the same page – that this is not the way it should be and that nobody is benefiting from this situation."
This is a well-researched and well-written treatise on mental illness and the U.S. Justice System. Recommended to people interested in the topic.
Rating: 4.5 stars
These seven brief lessons about physics are interesting, enlightening, and (more or less) accessible to non-scientists. The author, Carlo Rovelli, is a theoretical physicist with great enthusiasm for his subject matter.
The lessons (which I'm greatly simplifying) include:
Special Theory of Relativity: The faster you move, the slower time passes. This would be really obvious if you could travel at the speed of light.
General Theory of Relativity: Space is not empty, but composed of particles of some kind. The sun bends space around itself, and the planets circle around the sun because they follow the curve of space (like marbles that roll around a funnel). This explains the 'force of gravity' that prevents the planets from flying off into the galaxy.
Quantum Mechanics: The energy of a field is distributed in 'quanta', or packets of energy, like electrons in an electrical field. But quanta only exist when they're interacting with something else - so they bleep in an out of existence. Moreover, quanta move randomly so we can't know where they'll manifest themselves. (If you can't wrap your mind around this don't feel bad. Albert Einstein couldn't either. LOL)
The Architecture of the Cosmos: Our sun is one star among billions of stars in the galaxy.....and there are billions of galaxies.....and so on. There may even be more than one universe, but we don't know.
Particles: The universe is teeming with particles called electrons, quarks, gluons, photons, neutrinos, and Higgs bosons. Rovelli explains that these particles are 'like bricks in a Lego set' that make up the material things surrounding us.
Moreover, 'the nature of these particles and the way they move is described by quantum mehanics'.....so they're always winking in an out of being. All the particles, fields, and forces in the universe are summed up in 'The Standard Model of Particle Physics' which no one understands. Ha ha ha.
Quantum Gravity: Unfortunately the theories of general relativity - where the universe is a continuous curved space, and quantum mechanics - where the universe is composed of particles that bleep in and out of existence, contradict each other. But both theories work well. So physicists are trying to merge the ideas in a field of study called 'loop quantum gravity.'
One combined theory suggests that space is not continuous but made up of infinitesimally small 'grains of space' called loops.....connected somewhat like a chain link fence. This theory has repercussions that mess with the reality of time - so it needs a lot more of work.
Probability, Time, and The Heat of Black Holes: The notion of 'time' is elusive and has been the subject of much debate among physicists. Rovelli points out, though, that heat distinguishes the past from the future. As time goes by, heat passes from things that are hotter to things that are colder (for example, a teaspoon heats up in hot tea). The science of heat is called thermodynamics.
We don't know what happens to a gravitational field when it heats up, but a clue might be found in a black hole - a collapsed star with a gravitational field so strong that nothing (not even light) can escape. Black holes are hot - in essence hot 'spots' of space-time. Thus they combine quantum mechanics, general relativity, and thermodynamics. Eventually, scientists might be able to use black holes to reveal the true nature of time.
Ourselves: If humans are composed of ephemeral particles, the same stuff as the rest of the universe, where do we get our sense of ourselves......of being conscious and making decisions. Scientists studying the brain are trying to shed light on this.
I liked the book - which is short and sweet - and recommend it to readers interested in the subject.
Rating: 4 stars
In this 20th book in the 'Inspector Lynley' series, Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers look into the alleged suicide of a deacon. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with the characters is a plus.
*****
In the English town of Ludlow, Community Support Officer Gary Ruddock handles minor infractions, like kids binge drinking and the like.
So when an anonymous caller accuses the local deacon, Ian Druitt, of pedophilia, Ruddock is instructed to bring Druitt to the local nick, from which he'll be transferred to Shrewsbury - which has a 'real' police force.
Before Druitt can be moved, however, he's found dead in his cell - an apparent suicide. Ruddock, who left the prisoner alone, is on the hot seat - but an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) clears him of criminal misconduct....and Ruddock gets to keep his job.
Ian Druitt's father, who has money and connections, doesn't believe his son committed suicide and contacts his Member of Parliament - who gets New Scotland Yard (the Met) on the case. The Met's Assistant Commissioner, Sir David Hillier, sends Detective Chief Superintendent Isabelle Ardery and Sergeant Barbara Havers to Ludlow, in hopes they'll endorse the IPCC's work and put paid to the matter.
Both Hillier and Ardery have an ulterior motive as well: they want to find a reason to transfer Sgt.Havers - who's a thorn in their sides - to the boonies....so they're rid of her for good.
Once the detectives get to Ludlow, Ardery - who's a spiraling alcoholic with personal problems - does a shallow 'by the book' investigation, wanting to get back to London as soon as possible. Havers, however, makes more thorough inquiries. This gets Havers into trouble with Ardery.....but ends with Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley going back to Ludlow to re-investigate Pruitt's death.
Once Havers and Lynley begin a 'real' investigation, they discover that things are amiss in Ludlow. For instance: the CCTV camera that would have shown the anonymous caller who accused Pruitt of child abuse was moved; the police station parking lot was used for sexual liaisons; the county's Assistant Chief Constable had CSO Ruddock 'keeping an eye' on her son Finn - a college boy who partied hard; a girl had been assaulted; and more. Everyone is keeping secrets, though, and Havers and Lynley have to winkle them out to learn the truth about Pruit's death. In this they're aided by Sergeant Winston Nkata back at the Met, who's a whiz with computer searches.
The book has a complex plot and a rich cast of characters. The characters include a Ludlow physician of Indian heritage and her drug-using British husband; indifferent college students who share a house and are 'friends with benefits'; a cadre of women who belong to a glider club; a couple who's 'waiting for marriage'; a vicar who worked with Ian Pruitt; and more. The detectives interact with many of these people while they're looking into Pruitt's demise, which turns out to be a wrongful death.
One of the big pleasures of this series is following the private lives of Lynley and Havers, who've been through a lot since they became detective partners. In this book, widowed Lynley is still dating veterinarian Daidre Trahair - who only makes a token appearance in the story (thank goodness) 👍;
And Barbara Havers and Met secretary Dorothea Harriman are taking tap dancing lessons - so they can improve their fitness and lose a few pounds. The women are preparing for a dance recital, and Barbara FORBIDS Lynley from attending. Do you think he listens? Ha ha ha. 😃
I enjoyed this addition to the series, and strongly recommend it to mystery fans.
Rating: 4 stars
When fortyish Londoner Fiona Lawson catches her handsome husband Bram with another woman, in the children's playhouse no less, that's it! This is Bram's second offense, and divorce is the only answer.
Fiona is a modern woman, though, and proposes a 'bird's nest' custody arrangement. In this plan, the kids - Leo and Harry -remain in the family home, and the parents take turns living there.
On 'off days' the non-resident parent retires to a small apartment nearby, rented for that purpose.
Fiona is mainly concerned with the children's welfare, but that's not the whole story. The Lawsons own an elegant home on ritzy Trinity Avenue, where the houses are worth upwards of £2,000,000 -and Fiona LOVES her house: the furniture, accessories, garden, magnolia tree.....everything. Moreover, Fiona wants to retain her status, her friends, and her lifestyle. Since Fiona can't afford to buy Brad out of the property, the bird's nest plan is a good alternative.
The shared custody of the house (and boys) seems to be working well until Fiona returns from a brief getaway with her new boyfriend and observes a shocking sight. 😵 A moving van is parked in front of her abode, and workmen are carrying furniture inside.
Fiona rushes into the house to find that ALL of her possessions are gone, and a married couple she's never met, Lucy and David Vaughan, claim to be the new owners. What the hell? 😣
Fiona tries to call Bram, but there's no answer, and she can't locate him anywhere. Worse yet, when Fiona phones Leo and Harry's school, they're not there.
Before long Fiona learns that Bram has indeed sold the house. He masked the takeover from nosy neighbors by spreading the word that he was redecorating as a surprise for Fiona.....presumably in an attempt to win her back.
Fiona was away for only a short time, so Bram had to empty the entire house in a single day - to allow the Vaughans to take ownership before Fiona returned.
(I have to say this doesn't remotely ring true. I had professional movers when I relocated - who packed and moved everything - and the packing alone took a week. And my house wasn't nearly as grand as the Lawson place.)
The story is related in dual narratives, by Fiona and Bram. From their discourse, we get a glimpse of the couple's courtship, marriage, estrangement, and what happened after that.
Fiona's tale is presented (mostly) as an interview on a true crime podcast called 'The Victim', which exposes wrongdoing as a warning to the general public....in this case, real estate fraud.
The podcast is accompanied by sardonic tweets from interested listeners about Fiona's misplaced trust and naivety. Fiona was certainly inattentive and distracted - and overly besotted with her house - but I felt sympathy for her plight.
Bram's story is contained in a letter that explains his actions and what led up to them. Bram is a REAL piece of work - supremely self-centered and craven. To say more would be a spoiler.
The novel has an engaging plot, interesting characters, and surprising twists. For me, though, the story moved too slowly and the drip by drip revelations made me want to skip ahead. I didn't, however, which is a good thing because the book's ending is a corker. The word 'ironic' in the dictionary should be accompanied by the finale of this book.
Overall, I think many readers would enjoy this cautionary tale, and I'd recommend the book to fans of suspense novels.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Louise Candlish), and the publisher (Berkley) for a copy of the book.
Rating: 3 stars
Father Thomas Martin - who sports a shaved head, earring, and tattoo - runs a shelter for homeless boys in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco.
When the bloody body of a teenage youth, Andrew Bennet, is found in the shelter's recreation room, Father Martin is accused of murder.
Lou Giantelli's law firm represents Father Martin and Lou plans to defend the priest himself. First, though, Lou sends his nephew Peter Donley - a young attorney inexperienced in criminal law - to accompany the priest to the preliminary hearing.
When Lou suffers a sudden heart attack the Catholic Archdiocese arranges for another law firm to represent Father Martin. However Peter convinces the Archbishop to let HIM defend the priest even though the 'tough on crime' D.A. is expected to seek the death penalty.
As it turns out, the D.A. has a problem. The first detective at the crime scene, Dixon Connor, did a warrantless search of the priest's room and the 'best evidence' may be inadmissible.
The D.A. can't offer a plea bargain for political reasons so he tries to manipulate Peter into requesting one.
Moreover, the D.A. rushes the legal proceedings even though it's Christmas season. At this point I expected the story to involve an exciting courtroom battle, with Peter pitting his wits against a wily prosecutor. I was wrong.
It turns out that powerful men have been consorting with underage boy prostitutes - and someone has videotapes of the encounters.
Moreover, two adolescent boys in San Francisco were killed prior to Andrew Bennet, but the investigations were cursory and no one was arrested. In a separate plotline, a past accusation of rape led to a ruined career and a suicide.....and someone wants revenge. So the book is actually a thriller with plenty of action including: blackmail; breaking and entering; threats; beatings; abductions; frantic car rides; vicious guard dogs; and so on.
To say more would be a spoiler but I can say that Peter, trying to prove Father Martin's innocence, gets involved in some dangerous situations. The attorney also has frequent flashbacks to his abusive alcoholic father who died in suspicious circumstances. Luckily, Peter didn't follow in his father's footsteps. The attorney is happily married with a baby and a dog.
Interesting characters in the story include Frank Ross - a suspended cop/private investigator who helps Peter; Red - a boy on the run who was at the shelter on the night of the murder; D.A. Gil Ramsey - who's determined to be next California Governor; Augustus Ramsey - the D.A.'s pushy overbearing father; Dixon Connor - an old style rough and tumble cop; and more.
I've read other books by Robert Dugoni, which were well-plotted and well-written. When I started this 'new book' I expected it to be just as good....but it's not.
Author Robert Dugoni
As I was reading I kept thinking: "This seems like a first novel. Some of the plot points and action sequences feel like rookie writing." And during one intense scene the perp - holding a gun on our hero - calmly explains the whole crime, why it was done, how it was done, etc. Most experienced authors don't write like this (anymore). So I wasn't too surprised when - at the end of the book - Robert Dugoni explains that he wrote this story 20 years ago and recently 'revised it' for publication. Several of the book's main characters are based on Dugoni's close friends and relatives, and he wanted to see the book in print. The bottom line is that this book isn't as well crafted as the author's more recent work.
Still, it's a good story with plenty of action and suspense. I think mystery/thriller fans would enjoy it.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Robert Dugoni), and the publisher (Thomas & Mercer) for a copy of the book.
Rating: 3 stars
