Study Says Colorado National Leader in Abuse of Prisoners: Mentally Ill Suffer the most

Independent investigators found this week that the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) has seven times the national average of inmates in solitary confinement and many of those in harsh segregation are the mentally ill.

The investigation was conducted after complaints by family and civil rights groups that the state had been warehousing mentally ill inmates in isolation facilities without adequate care and treatment.

Out-of-state consultants Dr. James Austin of the National Institute of Corrections and Emmitt Sparkman, deputy commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, conducted the investigation.

In a report published this week, Austin and Sparkman found that more than one in five of segregated inmates are mentally ill and of those not mentally ill, only one in four is in segregation for institutional violence - violence against another inmate or staff member. They also found that Colorado keeps inmates in isolation years longer than the national standard.

Mark Silverstein, legal director for Colorado's ACLU told the Denver Post, "There are far too many people held in solitary confinement in Colorado and they are held there far too long."

Inhumane abusive treatment of the mentally ill and prison population is an old, well known, problem in Colorado. In 2009 Colorado was ranked the worst state in the nation for mental health treatment. A year later the state closed a prison mental health hospital and moved the inmates to the newly opened CSP II maximum security prison. Colorado's abusive prison culture was even the subject of an international documentary called Prison Valley.

Life in segregation is a dark and disturbing place. Inmates have no physical contact with other humans and are allowed out of their cell for no more than an hour a day, and some days, not at all. This kind of treatment can go on for years and the majority treated like this are in isolation for administrative reasons, not institutional violence. One former Colorado warden told Prison Valley film makers that CSP II was, "a cleaner version of hell."

Imagine the impact of state sponsored "hell" on a mentally ill inmate. The United Nations and Amnesty International both condemn the practice as barbaric and inhumane. No western liberal democracy has anything similar to Colorado's system, even for their most violent prisoners.

The problem in Colorado is both cultural and economic.

Politically a swing state, Colorado's democrats are far right on the spectrum. of law and order conservatism and harsh judicial punishment. Colorado inmates serve sentences 20 percent longer than the national average and Colorado is the only state in the nation that regularly hands down life sentences for nonviolent crimes.

This cultural conservatism is light on human compassion and heave on retribution. According to the 2010 Colorado Justice Report, the mentally ill moved to CSP II receive no treatment, just assessment, medication, and crises management. The state leadership, CDOC, and even the everyday citizen of Colorado seem to be okay with how the state treats the most vulnerable. This sentiment was voiced by the Pueblo Chieftain's Editorial Board when it wrote, "the sooner the economy turns around, the sooner CSP II can be put to its fullest user."

In 2010 Ari Zavaras, the former director of CDOC, went to the state legislature and claimed he needed an additional $10 million immediately to open CSP II and "quiet" the recent prison violence. The Austin-Sparkman study showed that Zavaras misrepresented the institutional violence to justify the opening of a prison critics called unnecessary. The total cost of CSP II was over $170.8 million and the additional $10 million came out of a 2010 budget that cut $260 million from K-12 education. In Colorado prisons are big money and trump even education. One CDOC guard commented, "Denver has business and government, the mountains have recreation, everywhere else has prisons."

Ken Kester, R - Las Animas laments, "I'd hate to see any community lose a prison. It could be devastating to the economy of some town, and probably one in Southern Colorado."

The prison industry has power in Colorado, Austin and Sparkman found that at a time when every other state in the country is reducing its prison populations Colorado prisons are still filled to capacity. The report highlights Sterling prison where it is so over crowded that there is a 90-person waiting list for inmates to get out of isolation and be put back into general population.

It is this exploiting culture and prison economy that will keep the abuses in Colorado going and keep CDOC from implementing any of the recommendations of the Austin-Sparkman report. As the new CDOC executive director Tom Clements said after reading the report, "The department is committed to sound correctional management practices that promote both institutional safety and community safety.'' Strikingly, given the findings Clements' statement of "sound correctional management" doesn't mention the humane treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill.