Steven Cave’s transformation happened in spite of a system that calls itself correctional but instead, he says, perpetuated his worst traumas, beliefs and behaviors. He entered that system in the state that has sentenced the most minors to life without parole, and where solitary confinement was a favorite method of punishment. In 2013, the Department of Justice found the state’s use of it in several facilities was unconstitutional.
Pennsylvania was the first state to institute the practice of confining prisoners alone in single cells. It started when a jail in Philadelphia became Eastern State Penitentiary, the country’s first state prison, in 1790. That was one year before the Eighth Amendment prohibited cruel and unusual punishment, and more than 200 years before the DOJ found the state’s use of solitary violated that amendment.
There are many people advocating for broad reforms in access to mental health treatment in prisons, said Carol Fisler, director of mental health and diversionary programs at the Center for Court Innovation. A problem, she said, is widely varying willingness by prosecutors and judges to allow people charged with crimes, especially violent ones, to remain free and able to access community-based services.
[For more on this story by Micah Danney, go to https://jjie.org/2018/06/21/on...traumatized-inmates/]
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