NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee loss of life row inmate Henry Hodges’ fellow prisoner Jon Corridor warned way back that he was in danger as a result of extreme neglect by jail authorities, having spent three a long time in solitary confinement with little or no human contact or interplay.
In a federal lawsuit Corridor filed in 2019 complaining that he too had been in solitary for practically six years with no viable solution to depart, he mentioned of Hodges: “He’s suffered essentially the most adversarial unecessary (sic) & wanton neglect, deprivals, & mistreatment I’ve seen on loss of life row. It’s a miracle he’s not dedicated suicide.”
The warning went unheeded, and final month Hodges reduce off his personal penis throughout what his lawyer referred to as a “psychiatric disturbance.”
Hodges’ self-mutilation was an excessive incident however not with out precedent in U.S. penitentiaries: Texas inmate Andre Thomas plucked out considered one of his eyes 5 days after his 2004 arrest for murdering his spouse and youngsters, and whereas on loss of life row in 2009, he eliminated his remaining eye and instructed jail officers he ate it.
Though most instances fall wanting these grisly examples, they underscore the numerous, rising and unaddressed psychological well being care wants of prisoners.
A research launched final yr from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics that compiled information from 2016 discovered 41% of federal and state prisoners reported a historical past of psychological sickness, and 13% had skilled critical psychological misery over the earlier 30 days. Among the many latter group, solely 41% of state prisoners mentioned they had been at present receiving any form of psychological well being therapy. The therapy charge for federal prisoners was even decrease, at simply 26%.
“Our prisons are usually not set as much as present psychological well being care, they usually don’t do it very properly,” mentioned Craig Haney, a professor of psychology on the College of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied the results of solitary confinement for many years.
With out sufficient sources to take care of mentally in poor health prisoners, the sickest are generally handled with punitive measures, like solitary confinement, that solely exacerbate the issue.
In Tennessee, Corridor’s lawsuit pointed to the vicious cycle he confronted.
“To get out of solitary confinement he have to be psychologically wholesome, however the situations of his confinement trigger him psychological injury, and the shortage of psychological therapy means he can not get better sufficiently to get out of solitary confinement,” Corridor’s attorneys wrote.
The annual report from the Tennessee Division of Correction exhibits the variety of inmates categorized as having a “critical and protracted psychological sickness” rose from round 5% of the inhabitants in 2002 to just about 23% in 2022. Practically 19% extra are listed as having different psychological diseases.
Questions abound as as to whether the state is doing sufficient to confront the disaster.
Centurion of Tennessee, which received a five-year, $123 million contract in 2020 to manage state-run prisons’ psychological well being providers, has been accused by rival Corizon of colluding with penitentiary officers to rig the bid. A lawsuit was settled out of court docket, and the Division of Correction mentioned in Might 2021 that it could rebid the contract. As of final week, one had not been awarded.
In the meantime, a state comptroller’s audit in January 2020 discovered each Centurion – which has administered medical providers since 2013 – and Corizon had been unable to constantly meet contractually required staffing ranges. The audit additionally discovered issues with medical documentation.
“We couldn’t find psychological well being evaluations for all inmates with documented psychological well being situations in our pattern; medical employees didn’t all the time embody doctor’s orders in affected person information; we couldn’t find psychological well being therapy plans for all inmates with documented psychological well being situations in our pattern,” the audit reads.
The Correction Division blamed the record-keeping issues on a cumbersome paper-based data system. The division referred to as transitioning to digital well being data a “high precedence” in 2020, however final week mentioned it’s nonetheless creating a request for proposals and hasn’t decided when it would exit.
The division mentioned the staffing vacancies didn’t have an effect on inmate care as a result of the shifts had been usually stuffed by different staffers.
Haney, the psychology professor, mentioned it seemingly wouldn’t matter for Hodges if Tennessee prisons had one of the best psychological well being care on this planet so long as he remained in lockdown. It’s properly established that even quick durations of solitary confinement are detrimental to an individual’s psychological well being, he mentioned.
“What’s a therapist going to have the ability to do if, on the finish of an hour, you’re put again in an empty cell the place you’re going to keep 23 hours a day?” he mentioned.
When inmates are remoted for weeks, they’ll develop into “out of contact with actuality and do issues which might be inexplicable in another context,” Haney continued. “We’re dependent as human beings on connections to and get in touch with with different individuals. Once you take that away, it turns into very destabilizing.”
Hodges was sentenced to die in 1992 for the homicide of a phone repairman and instantly put in solitary confinement. Earlier than he mutilated himself on Oct. 7, his conduct escalated over a number of days. Hodges went from smearing feces on his cell wall to slitting considered one of his wrists with a razor, based on court docket filings. When he was taken to the infirmary, he requested to go on suicide watch. However inside a few hours he was again in a cell the place he once more used a razor, this time to chop off his penis.
After being launched from the hospital, Hodges was returned to the infirmary. There he was stored bare and restrained by his legs and arms on a skinny mattress over a concrete slab in a room that was lit 24 hours a day, with no psychological stimulation resembling a radio or tv, his lawyer mentioned in a lawsuit filed Oct. 28. She in contrast his therapy to torture and mentioned it violated constitutional protections towards merciless and weird punishment.
Legal professionals for the state defended Hodges’ therapy at a listening to the identical day, with Deputy Legal professional Basic Scott Sutherland arguing that he was receiving “around-the-clock care.”
Nashville Chancellor I’Ashea Myles ordered the Correction Division to supply higher care, together with offering Hodges with clothes and psychological stimuli.
Hodges’ lawyer is attempting to get him transferred to the Center Tennessee Psychological Well being Institute. A preliminary injunction listening to in his case is scheduled for Nov. 28.
In the meantime his fellow inmates proceed to be involved. Corridor filed a grievance on his behalf Oct. 13 requesting that Hodges obtain particular reduction from extended solitary confinement. “After thirty years of sensory deprivation seclusions you could have disadvantaged that man of his sanity,” Corridor wrote.
The grievance was rejected as inappropriate, with the unit supervisor writing that Corridor was not an official inmate advocate.
