Sunday, May 02, 1999
Prisons now help mentally ill
Lawsuit prodded Ohio to become model for others
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ohio is redeeming its promise to provide better treatment for seriously mentally ill inmates, prison monitor Fred Cohen has confirmed.
Ohio should be “justly proud” of its evolving inmate mental health program, he said, and it's something others might well emulate.
Moreover, spending millions on better treatment must save money, Mr. Cohen said.
The changes spring from a settlement and consent decree that resolved the 1993 Dunn vs. Voinovich federal class action filed by inmates' attorneys Robert B. Newman and Alphonse A. Gerhardstein.
In an interview last week and a report to prisoners' attorneys, Mr. Cohen said Ohio's Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC):
• Quintupled the number of mental health professionals in its 31 institutions and significantly improved staff quality.
• Developed effective screening for new inmates.
• Is well on its way to providing enough beds and facilities for the seriously mentally ill.
• Trained guards to identify and deal with seriously mentally inmates in hope of avoiding or minimizing confrontations and speeding treatment.
• Took sole responsibility for inmate care, once shared with Ohio Department of Mental Health.
• Agreed to create an internal monitoring system to take over from Mr. Cohen when he's done in mid-2000.
“ODRC is beginning to develop a culture where those inmates with mental illness are not seen as rogues or demons,” Mr. Cohen said.
He said increasingly savvy guards are less abusive and apparently suffer fewer assaults from seriously mentally ill inmates.
Similarly, he said, fewer severely mentally ill inmates are “getting whacked with harsh penalties” for rules infractions.
Mr. Cohen said that's a plus because punishment often means solitary confinement, where mental conditions deteriorate and require still-costlier psychiatric care.
Safety-related conclusions are ten tative, Mr. Cohen said, but the consent decree has saved staff time and tax dollars. “Money spent on litigation in other jurisdictions has been spent in Ohio in providing legally mandated mental health care and the enhancing of prison security.”
“This is one of my favorite cases,” Mr. Newman said. “We accomplished something here. ... They are doing a great job.”
His co-counsel, Mr. Gerhardstein, agreed. “The quality of mental health care has gone up dramatically.”
Contrasts are stark. Five years ago, Mr. Cohen and his team of experts studied Ohio prisons and said:
• Mental health care was “inadequate in every important respect” for an estimated 4,000 seriously mentally ill inmates.
• Clinical staff was so inadequate that many prisoners' illnesses went undiagnosed and untreated.
• Instead of treatment, mentally ill inmates often got into trouble and landed in disciplinary cells.
Mr. Cohen, a lawyer from Tucson, Ariz., specializes in prison mental health. His team included out-of-state prison psychologists and psychiatrists.
Ohio hired them after Mr. Newman and Mr. Gerhardstein sued, say ing Ohio's prison mental health system violated the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Faced with Mr. Cohen's findings, both sides asked him to help mediate their differences. It worked. Ohio signed the consent decree.
Mr. Cohen was hired to monitor ODRC compliance through mid-2000.
Mr. Newman said the initial decision to seek facts and negotiate reflected, in large part, chemistry among the lawyers. Assistant Attorney General “Joseph Mancini was the major factor on the other side,” he added.
No one has figures on savings from improved treatment, but Mr. Cohen suggested where they might occur:
“Adequate outpatient mental health support has reduced the need to place an inmate in the far more costly setting of an RTU (Regional Treatment Unit). In addition, the effectiveness of the RTUs has reduced the need for psychiatric hospitalization, an even more expensive option.”
Ohio promised to keep pace with inmate growth, now at just over 47,000 inmates, of whom 6 or 7 per cent are the seriously mentally ill men and women covered by the Dunn vs. Voinovich consent decree.
Cincinnati vs. Flynt: The Sequel
Obscenity trials highly subjective
Video technology brought porn home
The players in Flynt trial
Would city get mayor or monster?
A couple of time-tested reasons to vote
5 good reasons for Charter reform
Issue 4 requires more than 30-second attention span
Insanity to be hard defense for trash-can mom
Successful insanity pleas in Tristate
West-bound commuters should seek new route
4,000 gather for Troutman funeral
Boone to use phone alerts
Montgomery meeting to update on tornado cleanup
Tornado victims robbed of salvaged possessions
Say so long to Stenger's
GET TO IT
How to fell 14-story building unclear, as is site's future
No Namers make best of life in no-man land
'Noah' goes overboard
Portman behind naming CIA headquarters after Bush
Portman, Chabot firm in opposition to war
Taking bows on Broadway
What goes down at the Parktown?
Willis Music celebrates 100 years of service
Wish list for CSO maestro
Dems tired of losing
A school made from scratch
Butler shows its history
Few injuries on stadium site
Investigation continues of ex-property value administrator
Ky. board to consider park grant
Ky. can't keep public defenders
Prisons now help mentally ill
Readers respond to AIDS effort
Regional workforce meeting planned
School board wants input
TRISTATE DIGEST
