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* WBEZ…
Christopher Knox already had a long history of living with mental illness when he was sentenced to time in an Illinois prison. He has had a litany of diagnoses, including bipolar disorder and PTSD, and a history of self-harm going back to when he was just 7 years old. When he was locked inside prison at age 19, his mental health deteriorated. He lashed out at a fellow prisoner and he said he was sent to solitary where he was in a cell 23 hours a day, seven days a week.
“It caused me to go into the dark places that I never want to ever go again,” Knox said. “It put me in a mind frame where I didn’t care about anyone or anything. I just gave up. I had lost all hope.”
In solitary, Knox mutilated himself and attempted suicide multiple times. Other times he’d yell or throw things at staff. That too, he said, was a kind of self-harm. If he provoked staff, they may rush into his cell and violently drag him out. Those interactions gave him the painful sensations he craved, and he hoped maybe one day an officer might kill him so it could be over.
During 17 years in solitary, Knox was criminally charged for spitting on an officer and was sentenced to an extra five years behind bars. His conviction for kicking a guard added four more years. A conviction for throwing liquid soap at a guard’s face landed him another six. As he continued to get in trouble, what started out as an anticipated 11 years in prison turned into a projected 41 years behind bars, according to data from the Illinois Prison Project, an advocacy organization.
More…
Jennifer Soble, executive director of the Prison Project, said she can’t imagine that Knox would have been charged with new offenses behind bars, let alone multiple cases, if he hadn’t spent so many years in solitary with little to no mental health treatment.
The project currently represents 43 clients it says have similar stories to Knox. They were all convicted of staff assaults, many for spitting or throwing urine on staff. According to Soble, all their clients have mental illness, and about 60% were on suicide watch at the time of the crime.
Soble said the prison environment, especially solitary, exacerbates people’s mental illnesses, and then the prison system punishes them for it. The punishments can be severe. The prison project said its clients have had an average of 15 additional years added to the time they expect to serve in prison — collectively, an additional 842 years.
This week the prison project plans to file 43 petitions for commutation that, if approved by the governor, would move up their release dates.
* Related…
* Some lawmakers, advocates want to restore voting rights to those in prison: Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the state’s election authority, said the board members’ opposition isn’t “philosophical,” but based on the bill’s constitutionality, which they believe is “problematic.” “What we have said is ‘change the constitution first, and then let’s do this,’” Dietrich said.
* State Partners With Legal Aid Network To Expunge Cannabis-Related Records: State Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Democrat from the West Side of Chicago, believes more outreach is needed.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 11:15 am
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Barbaric and tortuous…inside a prison near you…24/7/365.
Comment by Dotnonymous Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 11:27 am
Quite a few years ago, I took a tour of Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site in Philadelphia. Considered the world’s first “penitentiary”, it housed every prisoner in solitary confinement, the idea being that it would cause them to reflect on their offenses and repent.
Instead, it made them crazy - literally.
Comment by JoanP Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 11:36 am
“Barbaric and tortuous…inside a prison near you…24/7/365.”
Thank you. People have no idea. In a past life, I was inside just about every prison in the state of Wisconsin. The most disturbing was the youth prison. The reason was that 100% of these guys would be getting out within 5 years, presumably were young enough for meaningful rehabilitation, and yet they were treated the same or in many cases worse than the actual murderers in Waupun (max security originally built in the 1860s) and other human warehouses.
This moral atrocity amounts to a pretty sweet government jobs program for people who didn’t have the wherewithal or initiative to get out of the sticks though. They get to make better wages than anyone around them beating on the heads of disturbed kids from the city. What’s not to love? The system works.
Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 11:48 am
=== spitting on an officer and was sentenced to an extra five years behind bars. His conviction for kicking a guard added four more years. A conviction for throwing liquid soap at a guard’s face landed him another six. ===
This seems positively criminal to me.
Comment by Jibba Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 11:52 am
Unfortunately we treat the prison system as some sort of downstate jobs project to employee people. Treatment of prisoners is secondary. Same as the mental health centers.
Comment by Publius Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 11:56 am
But he was in solitary for hurting another prisoner. You can’t have people who harm others in the general population either, otherwise you violate those other prisoners’ rights.
So how to fix that? Other than perhaps deviating people with significant mental illness to a mental health facility. But are there enough spaces in those? And the idea of those is to get the patient stabilized enough for entry to a halfway house and not to keep them a specific number of years like for a judicial punishment.
Comment by cermak_rd Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 1:20 pm
But…how about changing barbaric conditions and mistreatment that drive humans beyond any limit you could withstand.
Comment by Dotnonymous Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 2:14 pm
Out of sight, out of mind.
Comment by Anon E Moose Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 2:26 pm
In my experience, nothing compares to the physically painful anguish endured during solitary confinement…if you don’t believe me?…go into your smallest bathroom and close the door and stay there for one day…and then one month…then… then… you would feel it.
Comment by Dotnonymous Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 2:33 pm
But you want R Kelly on “chomo” status in prison? Pick a lane.
Comment by Bad Habits Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 2:50 pm
Rich, this is the most painful post I have ever read on your blog, and I have followed for ever. Just so painful to imagine what these prisoners go through. Thanks for posting it Rich.
Comment by allknowingmasterofraccoodom Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 3:32 pm
Just be very careful about who you release back into society. If you look at all the mass school shootings in US history, practically all of them have been committed by individuals who have been treated for mental illness.
Comment by The Dude Abides Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 3:38 pm
well past time to devote more resources to mental illness and the people who suffer from various forms of that. That said, it is not time to coddle, or release into community, or wince at checks for gun purchases. ever experience someone with an illness that makes them nasty and angry and scary in the real world, let alone a state prison where the vast majority of people are in for violence? I have. Tribune op ed by Dart today answers well those who want to let lots of people of jail because of covid. stop thinking that people are in prison and jail primarily for tiny offenses. even the most progressive studies show that to decrease the prison population significantly…state prison, where most serve…would be to release those who have committed a violent offense. give resources for mental health but start realizing that the violent do not belong on the streets.
Comment by Amalia Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 3:52 pm
Solitary confinement 23 hours a day, 7 days a week is cruel and unusual punishment. If they aren’t crazy when subjected to that treatment they will be in short order and if they are crazy it will only make them worse. Yet, they can’t be allowed in the general prison population as the likelihood of additional violence increases dramatically.
There must be a mental health treatment option for these people. Drugs, although sometimes considered unpopular, must be an option. After appropriate medication to keep the violence at bay then routine thereby must be included with the medication.
Hard to believe that medication and therapy isn’t the go to protocol.
Comment by Flexible One Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 4:44 pm
Maybe don’t try to end another human being’s life and you won’t end up in prison? Just don’t try to kill people. That’s all.
Comment by James Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 10:50 pm
Sorry for the B2B posts:
Corey Knox jumped in the car and drove off while Christopher Knox and Mayfield chased Martinez to a parking lot at 612 S. Genesee St. and shot him once through the legs and twice in the back with a 9-mm semiautomatic pistol, Johnson said.
Comment by James Tuesday, Sep 28, 21 @ 10:56 pm