There are thousands of inmates who experience discrimination or improper treatment due to mental illness. We must band together to protect their rights. Let’s turn the tide from imprisoning persons with mental illnesses. Let’s fight to decriminalize mental illnesses and provide treatment rather than jail.

President Obama issued an executive order requiring prisons to place mentally ill patients in solitary confinement for no more than 60 days. So far, prison systems have not only ignored the order, they have worked to find loopholes. Solitary confinement of the mentally ill continues.

When prisons place mental health inmates in solitary confinement, it means less money spent on personnel, lower costs and increased profits. For mentally ill patients this is torture.

A Personal Story
My daughter, Malika Fateen, has been in solitary confinement for over 700 days at Carswell located in Fort Worth, TX. Malika has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia with schizoid effective disorder since the age of 14. Solitary confinement is one of the worst torments that could be inflicted on someone with her mental illness. We are residents of the District of Columbia, however Malika was sentenced to Carswell FMC because it is the only institution in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for females with longterm mental and medical conditions.

Malika arrived at Carswell in March, 2014, it took me eight months to get clearance to visit my daughter. Malika was branded, like most DC female inmates, with a 007 at the end of her identification. This gives prison authorities the notion that they can do whatever they want to the prisoners in their care whenever they want. Carswell is more than 1,300 miles from the District of Columbia. So the possibility of family and loved ones visiting frequently from DC is quite unlikely. Video conferencing for females was not allowed even though it is common for males in similar facilities.

When I was finally allowed to visit Malika, I found out that female inmates without mental illness were allowed access to early release programs, group therapy, art and music therapies, and creative writing. Malika snuck a small green crayon in her pocket to show me this was all she had and no paper.

When Malika had 100 days remaining in her sentence, I made more demands through my Congressional representative for early release or relocation to a closer facility. This privilege is granted to all male prisoners and female inmates with no mental health history. I believed this discriminatory practiced needed to be challenged. After all, my daughter was mentally ill before she went to prison. Even if she served every day of the sentence, when it ended Malika would still be mentally ill.

Recommendation
Treatment for mental illness should be the first priority, not putting people in jail and placing them under conditions such as solitary confinement.
Funding must be provided for long-term residential care facitlites for the chronically mentally ill.