Six inmates at the New Hampshire State Prison filed a lawsuit against the State for not providing adequate mental health services. Specifically, the suit charges that the State has failed to live up to a series of court settlements dating back to 1990.
NHPR's Rakhee Vemulapalli reports
One of the inmates’ more striking complaints has to do with the conditions in cells used for what is called precautionary watch. If prison officials believe a prisoner is suicidal, they sometimes put them in an observation room.
Alan Linder, one of the prisoners’ attorneys from New Hampshire Legal Assistance, says conditions in the observation room are very harsh.
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The only clothing they have is their boxer shorts. The room is extremely cold. There’s nothing in the room. There’s no bed there’s no mattress there’s no toilet.
Linder says prisoners have spent entire weekends in such cells. The suit demands that the State make good on previous settlements. Under those settlements, a residential treatment unit staffed by specially trained officers and mental health professionals was supposed to be operational last year. The State also agreed to monitor inmates on suicide watch and release inmates to the infirmary or a secure psychiatric unit after confinement. Linder says the State has yet to live up to what it told the court it would do.
State Department of Corrections Public Information Officer Jeffrey Lyons says that the prison does offer many mental health services to inmates.
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We have a full time mental health staff who are responsible for providing mental health services to the inmates. We have counseling programs available for them. We have one on one counseling. We have group counseling. We have volunteer organizations which come in and assist with counseling as well.
Lyons deferred further comments to the Attorney General’s office which is handling the case. The State won’t officially respond to the lawsuit until September. But Senior Assistant Attorney General Michael Brown says the State has substantially complied with the settlement agreements.
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The department has been negotiating and working with the representatives from Legal Assistance in good faith to try and resolve implementation issues. They have been very aggressive and the Department has been very aggressive about doing those things.
But Linder, the prisoners’ lawyer, sees the negotiations differently. He agrees they have taken place but says the outcomes have been less dramatic than the State believes.
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All we’re asking is that the State of New Hampshire Department of Corrections live up to its promises to mental health services. We’ve basically been told that they can’t or won’t do any more than they are doing and so we have no choice but to ask the Court to intervene to order the State of New Hampshire to live up to its commitment.
The prisoners are not asking for any monetary compensation. The petition asks that the State file a corrective plan within 60 days and that the matter stays within the Court’s jurisdiction until the plan is fully implemented.
For NHPR news I’m Rakhee Vemulapalli
