After picking on the American Civil Liberties Union yesterday, I find myself agreeing with it on one of its efforts:
Indiana prison officials facing a federal civil rights lawsuit for locking up mentally ill inmates in virtual isolation have agreed to move most of them into less harsh conditions.
The Indiana Department of Correction plans to move all the affected inmates from the Westville Control Unit and from the Secured Housing Unit of the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility by October, Commissioner J. David Donahue confirmed to The Associated Press.
The inmates - whose mental conditions can deteriorate by being locked up 23 hours per day in the one-man cells - will receive the psychiatric care they need before moving into general prison populations, said Donahue and Dr. Elton Amos, the DOC's medical director.
If this had been addressed when it should have been addressed, Charles Dickens could have made a great novel of it. The mentally ill are about the last group in this country to be invited to the common table. Given that they are so unwelcomed in normal life, it's no great shock that they get such short shrift in the criminal justice system.
