SPECIAL NEEDS INMATES

Special needs inmates and their medical and mental health care

Special needs inmates and their medical and mental health care

Introduction

Class action litigation has been instrumental in jail and prison reform over the past four decades. This article provides a very brief introduction underlying the legal basis for such litigation. It focuses on the role of the mental health expert in monitoring a correctional mental health care system as a result of class action litigation including issues related to selection of the expert, development of the remedial plan, and monitoring of the implementation of the remedial plan (Belbot, 2004).

The importance of policies and procedures and a quality improvement process is emphasized. Essential elements of the monitoring process, prior to and during the site assessment, are described. Inmates and correctional staff alike have benefited substantially from such litigation in the form of increased resources and positive changes in institutional culture.

A. Description of the issue or program that you select

Class action litigation has been instrumental in jail and prison reform over the past four decades. Inmates and correctional staff alike have benefited substantially from such litigation in the form of increased resources and positive changes in institutional culture.

Cohen (1988, 2008) and Sturm (1993) have documented extensively the legal bases for requiring mental health services in correctional facilities through litigation. In Cooper v. Pate (1964), the U.S. Supreme Court established that prisoners have constitutional rights. Estelle v. Gamble (1976) clearly established an inmate's constitutional right to medical care. The court decided that ''deliberate indifference'' to the serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain, which violates the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

In Bowring v. Godwin (1977), a federal Court of Appeals found ''no underlying distinction from the right to medical care for physical ills and its psychological or psychiatric counterpart'' (p. 5). Bell v. Wolfish (1979) stands for the proposition that denial of health care to pretrial detainees may result in the infliction of needless suffering or death, and the due process clause mandates appropriate medical or mental health intervention incident to pretrial incarceration (Cohen, 1988). Ruiz v. Estelle (1980) provided an early legal framework for identifying components of a constitutionally adequate mental health system in the context of litigation involving virtually every aspect of life in the Texas Department of Corrections.

B. Description of the problems that exist that make it less effective than possible

The right of inmates to file cases in state and federal court in order to challenge the conditions of their confinement has been firmly established in these landmark decisions. These cases were typically brought as lawsuits filed under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code. Section 1983 lawsuits stem from legislation passed by the U.S. Congress after the Civil War to protect freed slaves from reprisals during Reconstruction. The section was interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1960s to allow prison and jail inmates to raise claims challenging conditions of their ...