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| Mont. Prison Ends 'Inhumane' Punishment |
| By Billings Gazette |
| Published: 05/20/2003 |
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Montana State Prison officials say they have ended a program that included stripping naked and locking unruly inmates in dirty isolation cells without mattresses for days -- a program Montana's top court recently decried as inhumane. However, Warden Mike Mahoney said recently the prison may still use some techniques of the program, like isolation cells and removal of inmate clothing, to deal with noncompliant prisoners. 'If someone is going to try to hang himself with his jumpsuit, I'm still going to take his jumpsuit away,' Mahoney said. At issue is the prison's behavior modification program. The policy, which Mahoney said had been in place at the prison for several years, was a way of dealing with unruly inmates and included placing the inmate in a special isolation cell for a certain period of time. Inmates could be deprived of things, including their clothes and cell mattress. The inmate could earn back certain freedoms with good behavior. Former inmate Mark Edward Walker, who was diagnosed with mental illness but not provided medication during his stay at the prison, was repeatedly in the program. His punishment included being locked naked in an isolation cell dirtied with the blood of other inmates for days and weeks at a time, Montana Supreme Court documents show. Walker's behavior stemmed from his untreated mental illness, court documents said, but rather than being treated, he was punished for his bad behavior through the prison's behavior modification program. Walker was serving a five-year sentence for negligent arson and forgery stemming from a 1994 incident in Cascade County. Walker filed suit against prison saying his treatment under the prison's behavior modification program was cruel and unusual punishment. In an April 29 decision, the Montana Supreme Court said the policy was 'an affront to the inviolable right of human dignity,' and that using such a program on mentally ill inmates was 'cruel and unusual punishment if it exacerbates the inmate's mental health condition.' The court ordered the prison to stop using the program and to tell the justices in writing within the next six months exactly how prison officials have changed their policies. The justices also sent the case back to the District Court in Great Falls where Walker first filed his complaint, adding that the Great Falls judge could order an inspection of the prison to make sure the prison had changed the program. Department of Corrections officials issued a fiery response to the ruling, calling it an inappropriate intrusion into prison operations. Mahoney said he's not exactly sure what the Supreme Court wants: an end to the behavior modification program itself or an end to elements of the program the justices found most unacceptable. Some inmates will cause problems and the prison has to have a way of dealing with them, he said. For now, the prison has scrapped the modification plan and are taking each inmate behavior problem on a case-by-case basis. Prison officials may choose to use some elements of the old behavior modification plans as a way of dealing with inmates, he said. |
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