Christopher Lopez

Prisons Are Obsolete: California Mental Health Edition





For me, the issue here is not just that mentally ill inmates need specialized care they’re not getting among the general population. It’s that the very care they need is essentially at odds with the overall terms of their confinement, whether it be in isolation or in prison at all. There are, and there can be, better institutional settings for people with such needs.

Studies have shown that solitary confinement, especially for prolonged periods of time, can be very dangerous to a prisoner’s physical and mental health and well-being. The isolation of those with mental health issues can “exacerbate their symptoms or provoke recurrence.” It is generally only used as a disciplinary or punitive measure and has little-to-no therapeutic or rehabilitative value. What possible justification can there be, then, for its use against those with mental health needs?

Prisons are already poorly equipped to care for this population, and their use of solitary against the mentally ill is evidence of their failure to understand their treatment needs. At many institutions, guards fail time and time again in their struggle to do the work of doctors and other medical professionals. Overcrowding and a lack of resources are so bad that some prisons are experimenting with so-called ‘telemedicine,’ piping doctors in through video conferencing because they can’t satisfy demand with visiting practitioners. It makes much more sense to put the people who would take advantage of this care in a setting where they can get it full-time.

The truth is that we have experimented for decades with confining the mentally ill in our prisons rather than erecting institutions that can actually care for them. It has never worked. These changes are a welcome recognition of the plight facing mentally ill people in our prisons, but it should encourage us to broaden our focus and consider whether the prison is the right place for them (or anyone) at all. We might find we’re be better suited building stronger, solutions-oriented and specialized institutions and move past the failed project of incarceration altogether.


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