Reader on working in a dehumanized jail system: Haney is right
I received this response to Craig Haney’s Statement on Psychologists, Detention Facilities, and Torture that I recently posted. Haney, remember, discussed the roots of US brutality toward national security detainees in the system of brutality against prisoners constructed over the last 30+ years. This reader tells of his experiences working as a mental health worker in an abusive prison system, and of his failure to make a dent against the abuses. He also reminds us, as does Haney, of the dehumanizing aspects of working in such a system.
I’d like to thank you for posting Craig Haney’s presentation. I worked in a Jail in an Eastern mid-sized city for about two years as Mental Health Specialist, supervised by a psychologist. I experienced much of what is discussed in the posting.
In that crazy world of incarceration Mental Health procedures became a punishment and the MH staff became passively complicit. Every morning we’d come in to clear out the night’s collection of “suicidal” inmates who were transferred to observation cells on a psych floor. Correctional officers had the power to send any inmate there for “medical attention.” The easiest way to deal with an unruly or uncooperative inmate was to get him to say, or assert that he said, he was going to hurt himself. This triggered an immediate suspension of all discussions, stripping the inmate naked or dressing him in a medieval looking “dignity” garment, and shipping him “upstairs” for observation, or more often punishment and indignity.
This became a morning ritual, and the staff would even joke about the night’s bounty. As a naïve newbie I recommended we train the correctional staff in appropriate criterion for placing a prisoner on “suicide status”, but it was obvious that the staff knew that would be futile as correctional staff saw it as simply the easiest way to get rid of an inmate. I recommended we begin monitoring this abuse of our service and identify staff offenders, but shrugs and eye rolls quickly communicated the resignation among the clinical staff. We had passively submitted to essentially Gitmo tactics to break wills.
I was blessed with a year of working with excellent correctional staff that was professional, responsible, sensible, and dedicated. I saw many take downs and restraints of agitated inmates, all handled professionally and with the inmate’s security paramount to the process. Even inmates who were extremely obnoxious, threatening, or belligerent were handled with a minimum of discomfort. These things seemed to be done as well as it could be.
A true crisis for me occurred when my office was being refurbished and my interview desk was placed outside of the booking area’s glass holding tank. One late afternoon a guard (I won’t honor him with the title correctional officer) marched into the holding tank, followed by his lieutenant. He approached the only inmate in the room, a small black man sleeping on a concrete bench. The towering burley guard suddenly jerked the inmate to his feet and began slapping and beating him. He kicked him on the floor and shoved him against the walls. I sat their slack-jawed in full view of the assault, completely unprovoked. After about four minutes the lieutenant called him off and they left, leaving the battered man on the floor.
I was stunned yet numb at what I had witnessed. It was after 5pm and I left for home. I talked it over with my wife. I discussed it with my supervisor on the phone. I spent a sleepless night pondering what to do. The next morning I went straight to the guard’s captain and told the story. Rule number one in guard-prisoner abuse is to never do it in front of a civilian. I was received well, my statements recorded, and an investigation begun that took a few months. Soon there was a schism in the correctional staff about my act of reporting. About 70% of the officers patted me on the back and assured me I had done the right thing. The other 30% thought I was a squealer and a traitor. Yet I was still dependent upon them for my own protection in the facility. My supervisor and colleagues offered smiling assurances that I had no choice but to report the incident, but it seemed to be mostly empty platitudes. I asked if any of the other MH staff had seen or experienced similar incidents in their many years of working there. None had.
Ultimately the matter went to court, the guard’s pension was a risk, and I was the only one left standing to feel the brunt. The inmate, long released from custody, didn’t show up for the hearing and the case against the guard was dismissed. “All for naught,” was the conventional wisdom of the staff, and even worse, for I was still dependent upon the correctional staff for daily protection. My relations with all staff became cordial but more distant. I left the job a few months later, feeling my effectiveness was seriously diminished.
I returned to a small private practice and, among other things, began evaluating kids charged as juvenile sex offenders. Of course in the jail I quickly learned that justice had long ago been replaced by economic expediency. As noted by numerous stellar academic legal experts in the Frontline program “The Plea,” criminal justice has become not a source of justice, but a source of revenue for the community. Convicted juveniles were sent for pre-sentence evaluations for their crimes, most plead out in the face of a crushing legal system and misrepresentations by prosecutors. In reviewing the case materials (court documents, depositions, and arrest affidavits) I soon learned that the cases were largely bogus, the defense attorneys must have been asleep, and the child had likely committed no sex offense and would not benefit from the often grueling, punitive, verbally abusive, and demeaning process of sex offender “treatment.” So I became aware of children, with no prior offenses and a dubious legal process, mandated to “treatment” programs run by mental health professionals, including psychologists, who would subject them to abusive, demeaning, and offensive treatments in the name of public safety. To disagree with the sentence or the focus of treatment was to be dropped from the approved provider list. Hence a diagnosis by court order and the complete abandonment of clinical principles. “Your honor, do I get immunity for this assessment so that I can help hold this person responsible for his actions?”
These recollections remind me of the Jules Fieffer play, “Little Murders,” portraying the incremental Milgram-esk ratching away of principles and ethics until the only way to survive in an insane environment is to become insane.
Add comment May 23rd, 2008