The Fresno County Jail’s Barbaric Treatment of the Mentally Ill (denying their psych meds) [View all]

[annm4peace]

(I don't understand why the CA Attorney General hasn't investigated the Sheriff and doctors, and prosecuted their abuse of the prisoners. The whole article is incredible, and read the 4 heartbreaking stories that is the norm at the Fresno Co Jail so is hard to post just sections of the article. I hope with enough attention that some legal action will be taken and the torturing of the prisoners will end. )

(this investigative report was not put out by the big for profit central Valley newspaper The Fresno Bee, but instead the local progressive non-profit co-op newspaper, Community Alliance)

"Reported and written by Fresno State journalists Sam LoProto, Damian Marquez, Angel Moreno, Jacob Rayburn, Brianna Vaccari, Liana Whitehead and their professor Mark Arax.

For the past six years, in an effort to cut costs, the Fresno County Jail has repeatedly denied mentally ill defendants the anti-psychotic medications prescribed to them by their outside doctors—medications needed to keep them sane.

As a result, according to Fresno County judges, former nurses, correctional officers, doctors, lawyers and the families of the defendants, the jail medical staff is triggering psychotic breakdowns in people suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia."

The prolonged mental breakdowns are causing some defendants to languish in isolated confinement for years at a time, they say, creating a system of mental torture at the county jail. Denied their usual medications, defendants suffer paranoid delusions and mania so debilitating that some have tried to commit suicide multiple times in jail, slashing their throats or wrists with county-issued razors.

Because they are not mentally competent to stand trial, they bounce back and forth in a perverse revolving door between the county jail and state mental hospitals, costing taxpayers even more money.

“It is just unconscionable to have some of these people who are severely mentally ill be denied medication and then suffer the kinds of symptoms they are suffering in jail,” Fresno County Superior Court Judge Jonathan Skiles said. “I’ve seen it happen a number of times, and I just don’t understand it. Any of those terms—‘barbaric, medieval’—could apply.

“As for saving money, it might save our jail a little in prescription drug costs, but it’s costing the overall system a lot more.”

http://fresnoalliance.com/wordpress/?p=7800

"Dr. Howard Terrell, a board-certified psychiatrist who is often asked by Fresno County judges to serve as a court expert, said he has witnessed dozens of cases where mentally ill defendants—denied their medications by the county jail—become too psychotic to stand trial.

“I’ve seen defendants for the court who were so severely psychotic that they had to be sent off to Atascadero State Hospital or Metro State Hospital, where they were put on the proper anti-psychotic medications and came back fine. But the jail would discontinue their meds by issuing a new diagnosis or just taking them off for no good reason, and they rapidly deteriorated from being quite competent to being psychotic again.

“This happened again and again through the same revolving door. Just tragic. Over and over. Just horrible. It’s immoral.”

"But critics who have studied the jail system and watched it evolve over the past decade say every level of the county’s bureaucracy—the Board of Supervisors, the county administrative officer, the sheriff, the jail medical staff, the county public health officer—has helped institutionalize a methodology of mental torture, turning it into an apparatus of the bureaucracy. Then each level turns blind and silent to its consequences."

( how can so many officials know and criticize what is happening yet can't stop it?)

Over the past four months, Fresno State journalists working with their professor, Mark Arax, have documented a half dozen cases where jail medical staff withheld anti-psychotic or mood stabilizing drugs to defendants with longstanding diagnoses of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. In each case, medical documents and interviews show, the defendant’s mental state quickly deteriorated, a freefall into madness.

Wesley Alexander, a bipolar man in his 40s, was denied his anti-psychotic medications in 2012 and lost nearly 80 pounds as he sat in an isolated cell in Fresno County Jail for five months, interviews show. At one point, he turned his sock into a sponge so he could drink water from a hole in the floor where he went to the bathroom. In a recent interview from Atascadero State Hospital, Alexander said he went insane at the jail while awaiting trial and tried to kill himself, slitting his wrist with a jail-issued razor.

“It was terrifying. I didn’t know what to do. I was in turmoil. I was frightened. I was scared,” Alexander said. “I’ve never been in a situation like that in my life.”

As Fendley cycled in and out of the jail over a two-year period on charges that ranged from stealing his grandmother’s car to attempting to suffocate his infant daughter, he continued to deteriorate mentally. Then last December, he was brought back into the jail for hitting his grandmother on the head. His mother and aunt said they personally went down to the jail and warned staff that he was “going to kill someone.” Hours later, gripped by psychosis, Fendley was released from jail. He walked for miles in the dark of early morning to his grandmother’s home, where he then suffocated her to death.

David Anguiano, a bipolar man in his 50s, was jailed in 2007 after shooting a gun at a residence during a psychotic breakdown of extreme paranoia. At first, records show, the jail provided him with the anti-psychotic medication Seroquel. But weeks later, in a cost-cutting move, the county changed its policy on prescription drugs for inmates, and the medication was withheld.

His sister, Marta Anguiano, said he quickly deteriorated and eventually went insane as she pleaded with jail staff—to no avail—to medicate him with an anti-psychotic.

The mental breakdowns induced by the jail’s repeated denial of proper medication delayed the trial for nearly five years, she said. Last December, he was finally convicted of attempted murder and assault charges and sentenced to state prison, where he died a month later of a bacterial infection. He was 58.

Is Fresno County an anomaly? Have other counties in California, faced with tight finances, implemented the same practices at their jails? A spot check of public defenders around the state, while not definitive by any means, indicates that Fresno County stands on the extreme end when it comes to restricting psychotropic drugs to inmates.

In Sonoma County, as one example, the jail had been trying to save money by prescribing generic anti-psychotic medications, which were causing side effects in inmates and leading to mental breakdowns. Seven years ago, the sheriff sat down with mental health advocates and ended the practice. Since then, the jail has prescribed only high-quality anti-psychotics.

“What the jail was doing was not only inhumane, but it was pennywise and pound foolish,” said John Abrahams, Sonoma County’s recently retired public defender. “Clogging the courts and delaying trials because defendants aren’t mentally competent is no way to run a criminal justice system. So we joined the 21st century.

“I’m in contact with a lot of public defenders around the state, and I’ve never heard of other counties doing what Fresno County is doing. It makes no sense."


In 2010, Fresno civil rights activists took their concerns about the jail’s treatment of the mentally ill to the Fresno County Grand Jury. The citizens’ panel agreed to look into the jail’s practice of restricting psychotropic drugs. But after input from Sheriff Margaret Mims and District Attorney Elizabeth Egan, the grand jury decided to sidestep the heart of the matter, saying the allegations included “a number of complex issues not easily analyzed or summarized.”

To make matters worse, Fresno doesn't have one psych hospital.. not one.

Here is the Sheriff and County of Fresno Supervisor's contact if you want to tell them what you think of how they treat mentally ill US Citizens

County Board of Supevisors
http://www.co.fresno.ca.us/Departments.aspx?id=122
[phone]
Address:
2281 Tulare Street, #301, Hall of Records,
Fresno, CA 93721-2198

http://www.fresnosheriff.org/
Sheriff's
Headquarters

Sheriff Margaret Mims
2200 Fresno St.
Fresno, CA 93721
559-488-3939

I only posted parts of the prisoners story and what has and hasn't been done. Often the County officials lie about why they are taking way the medication or not giving them... but you'd have to read the article.

The changes won't happen from the inside but from outside pressure. I hope this gets to the CA Attorney General or even the US Attorney General. I'm sure the Human Rights Division of the UN would be upset at what is happening.