FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 12, 2024
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Margaretta Kroeger, CLASI Communications Director, mkroeger@declasi.org
New Report Finds Delaware Prisons Must Increase Transparency and Improve Conditions for Incarcerated People with Mental Illness
CLASI Disabilities Law Program Finds Troubling Practices Persist After Solitary Confinement Litigation
WILMINGTON, DE—The Disabilities Law Program (“DLP”) of Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. (“CLASI”) has today issued a new report, The State of Solitary: Restrictive Housing and Treatment of Incarcerated Delawareans with Mental Illness, calling on the Delaware Department of Correction (“DDOC”) to increase transparency and improve conditions for incarcerated people with mental illness. The report is based on CLASI’s in-person monitoring visits at DDOC prisons, which assessed conditions two years after the end of its settlement agreement with DDOC over solitary confinement practices and inadequate mental health treatment.
“While we appreciate that DDOC has made some progress in improving conditions since the litigation, our monitoring revealed many troubling practices that it must address to ensure incarcerated individuals with mental illness in Delaware are being treated fairly and humanely,” said Elizabeth Booth, Supervising Attorney of CLASI’s Disabilities Law Program. “DDOC now appears to be using informal ‘backdoor’ methods to punish these individuals outside of solitary confinement, and we also observed problematic practices related to suicide prevention, substance abuse treatment, and general access to mental health treatment, which exacerbate their symptoms and increase the risk of self-harm.”
“We are also very concerned about DDOC’s lack of transparency,” said Booth. “DDOC refused to provide the information we needed to fully assess current practices, and we’re calling on them to increase what is publicly accessible.”
CLASI, the ACLU of Delaware, and Pepper Hamilton, LLP, filed a federal lawsuit, CLASI v. Coupe, against DDOC in September 2015. It alleged that DDOC violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment by housing mentally ill individuals in solitary confinement and failing to address their serious mental health needs adequately. Individuals in solitary confinement were being held in 8- by 11-foot cells for 23-24 hours per day, with only three hours of out-of-cell time per week, and minimal or no access to mental health treatment.
The parties reached a settlement agreement in 2016, with DDOC committing to make changes including increased mental health staffing and out-of-cell time for individuals in disciplinary detention, establishing that they could not be placed in disciplinary detention for more than 15 consecutive days, and agreeing that no person classified as seriously mentally ill could be placed in disciplinary detention unless they presented an immediate danger and there was no reasonable alternative. These terms were effective for five years, during which CLASI monitored DDOC’s progress by reviewing data, meeting with DDOC leadership, and conducting facility visits with an expert monitor.
Today’s report is based on updated monitoring visits conducted in 2023 by CLASI staff, along with two experts, to assess current conditions at DDOC’s four Level V correctional facilities: Baylor Women’s, Howard R. Young, and Sussex Correctional Institutions, and James T. Vaughn Correctional Center.
During the 2023 monitoring process, DDOC denied many of CLASI’s requests for more specific data and documentation, which made it difficult to fully assess how current practices compare with those reported while the CLASI v. Coupe settlement was in effect. Based on monitoring visits and available information, there were areas where DDOC appeared to remain in compliance with the policy changes agreed to as part of the settlement and where some progress had been made, particularly in the implementation of specialized “Residential Treatment Units” (RTUs) for individuals with mental illness at two of the four prisons.
However, monitoring uncovered several major areas of concern that DDOC must address, including:
- Ending the use of “backdoor” methods to restrict and isolate individuals outside of traditional solitary confinement including punitive point and classification systems, privilege sanctions, and administrative segregation.
- Overhauling suicide prevention practices that are unnecessarily punitive and restrictive, exacerbate symptoms, and are a barrier to treatment.
- Improving the continuum of mental health services and crisis intervention processes to avoid the current sharp drop-off in services after individuals are moved out of Residential Treatment Units.
- Replacing outdated inhumane practices that are no longer generally accepted in correctional settings across the country, including the use of security dogs and “loaf” meals for disruptive behavior.
- Expanding the use of Residential Treatment Units to provide critical mental health staff, services, and programming for individuals requiring an inpatient level of care for mental health conditions.
- Increasing activities in restrictive housing to reduce isolation and help prevent re-offending.
- Reforming substance abuse treatment practices to ensure individuals on medications for an opiate use disorder receive consistent treatment that conforms with basic clinical standards of care.
Specific recommendations for DDOC action in each of these areas can be found in the report’s Executive Summary, available here.
CLASI urges DDOC to review the report’s findings and implement its specific recommendations, and to increase transparency through publicly available data tracking, so that we can work together to ensure that incarcerated Delawareans with mental illness are treated humanely and receive needed treatment.
View the full report here.
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About the Disabilities Law Program of Community Legal Aid Society, Inc.:
Founded in 1946, the mission of Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. (“CLASI”) is to combat injustice through creative and persistent civil legal advocacy on behalf of vulnerable and underserved Delawareans. CLASI provides free legal representation to people with disabilities, people aged 60 or over, people with low incomes, and victims of crime and discrimination to help our clients obtain shelter, government benefits, educational services, medical services, orders of protection from abuse, legal immigration status, and other civil legal remedies.
CLASI’s Disabilities Law Program (“DLP”) provides free legal representation to children and adults with physical and mental disabilities to protect them from abuse and neglect and to advocate for their legal rights in the community and facilities. The DLP serves as Delaware’s designated Protection and Advocacy system for people with disabilities (“P&A”). Learn more about the DLP here: https://www.declasi.org/disabilities-law-program/
CLASI has offices in Wilmington, Dover, and Georgetown, Delaware. To learn more about our work, please visit: https://www.declasi.org/
