CORRECTION OFFICIALS in Massachusetts know which steps the state must take to reduce the number of prison suicides, especially after commissioning an exhaustive 2007 study on ways to safeguard mentally ill prisoners. But the problem persists. This year, eight prisoners have taken their own lives — yielding a suicide rate four times the national average. This deep-rooted danger demands the full attention of Correction Commissioner Harold Clarke.
About one-fourth of the state’s 11,000 prisoners suffer from mental illness. The 2007 study by prison suicide expert Lindsay Hayes found the correction system wanting in several areas, ranging from overuse of segregation units to design flaws in cells. Correction officials acted on many of the findings, adding more treatment beds for prisoners and expanding training for officers. Two years ago, state officials also selected a new vendor for mental health services: Virginia-based MHM Services Inc. Company president Steven Wheeler says that Massachusetts prisons are “90 percent staffed’’ in the areas of mental health, despite the down economy. Yet the deaths continue.
The latest cluster of suicides follow no discernible pattern. But the widespread use of segregation — perhaps better known as solitary confinement — continues to be a problem, according to Leslie Walker, executive director of Boston-based Prisoners’ Legal Services. Even healthy prisoners can take leave of their senses after long periods of isolation. Walker’s group and others have sued the correction department to end the segregation of mentally ill prisoners. But settlement negotiations with the DOC have broken down. Still, it shouldn’t require a trial in federal court to see that mentally ill prisoners will fare better in highly-secure treatment units than in segregation cells.
Commissions always pop up after problems in the prison system are exposed, but quickly fade from sight. The health of prisoners in state custody, the safety of prison employees, and the well-being of the public would benefit from the formation of a permanent correction advisory board. Such a board could monitor the correction department’s budget, evaluate medical care of inmates, and report on the general conditions of prison buildings. The Legislature has ignored calls to create such a permanent board for more than a decade. That failure impedes outside scrutiny of the prison system — and increases the burden on officials inside the system to address the suicide problem.
