Announcement for 09/15/09
Senate Holds Hearing on "Human Rights at Home: Mental Illness in U. S. Prisons and Jails"
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, chaired by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), held a hearing on “Human Rights at Home: Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons and Jails” on September 15, 2009. The hearing focused on the high rate of mental illnesses among U.S. prisoners and was the Subcommittee’s first hearing examining a domestic human rights issue. Ranking Member Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Senator Al Franken (D-MN) also attended the hearing.
"Mental illness has been criminalized in our country over the last 30 years," Durbin said. "By allowing our prisons and jails to become a primary provider of mental health services, we have taken a step backward in the effort to protect the human rights of people with mental illness."
Ranking member Coburn said, "The key is recognition and prevention. If we have someone incarcerated with a significant illness, we are asking for problems for them and for us. Treatment is a must."
According to a study by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, researchers documented serious mental illnesses in 14.5 percent of the men and 31 percent of the women in jails, which taken together, comprises 16.9 percent of those studied rates in excess of three to six times those found in the general population.
Justice Kathryn E. Zenoff, Presiding Justice, Second Appellate Court of Illinois, testified on how communities across the country have developed innovative initiatives, such as mental health courts, pre-trial diversion programs, and special crisis response training programs for law enforcement to deal with the problem. David Fuller, Outreach and Housing Coordinator, Manhattan Outreach Consortium, testified about his time incarcerated in New York as a person with a mental illness.
Other witnesses included: Harley Lappin, Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons; Samuel Bagenstos, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Mary Lou Leary, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice; Gary D. Maynard, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety & Correctional Services; and Michael Randle, Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, who testified before the committee on the department’s treatment of the mentally ill at the prison in Tamms, Ill.
The webcast of the hearing and witness testimony can be found at: http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=4047.