MarQui Clardy recalls a terrifying night in prison that exposes how mental illness is routinely mishandled by correctional systems that rely on punishment instead of treatment.
It’s three o’ clock in the morning, and I’m suddenly awakened by the sound by my cellmate (“Lebron”) pacing the floor and mumbling to himself. My first thought is that maybe he’s been having trouble sleeping and was up listening to music through his earbuds. I chalk up the mumbling to him rapping along to whatever song he might be listening to.
But when I turn around and look over at him, I’m surprised to see that not only is Lebron not listening to any music; he has his shirt off and is clutching two ink pens in his fists as if they’re shanks. The expression on his face is a mixture of fear and anger. Although Lebron and I have always gotten along pretty well, seeing him in this state puts me on edge. This is prison, after all. I have no idea what he’s thinking or what he’s about to do, so I sit up in my bunk.
“Yo, you good, Bro?” I ask him.
“Man, I just heard them out there talking about me,” he answers with a wild look in his eyes.
“Who?”
“I don’t know, but I think they’re trying to come rob me.” He holds his ink pens out to me. “I’m gonna stab them if they come in here!”
Locked Doors and Escalating Paranoia
Again, it’s 3 a.m. Our housing unit locks down at 11:30 every night, and we’re not let back out of our cells until around 7 a.m. I find it puzzling that Lebron claims to hear people plotting against him, because no one can possibly be outside their cells this time of the morning. But just to make sure, I get up and walk to the door to see if there’s anyone lurking around in the day room.
“See, don’t you hear them?” Lebron asks, giving me a look that says he wants—no, needs—me to confirm what he thinks he’s hearing. “You hear them out there talking about me, right?”
But as I expected, there’s no one in the day room, and it’s dead quite out there. It’s at this moment that I realize Lebron is having some sort of psychiatric crisis. Whatever he’s hearing is inside his head.
Mental Illness Without Intervention
I convince him to get in his bunk and try to get some rest, which he does. But a few minutes later, he’s right back up—ink pens in hand—mumbling at the door. I throw in the towel and go back to sleep.
As the days pass, Lebron’s paranoid behavior continues. In addition to not sleeping at night, he starts randomly approaching other inmates during the day and accusing them of saying things about him. He even begins wrapping magazines around his torso, claiming it’s to protect himself from “them” stabbing him. When I inquire about the identities of “them,” he simply says it’s the people trying to rob him.
Seeing the deterioration of Lebron’s mental state becomes so concerning that a few of his close friends and I contact the mental health department to let them know he needs help. When a group of COs come to the unit and escort Lebron out, we all express our relief. We assume they’re taking him to see the prison psychiatrist to get the treatment he urgently needs.
Solitary Confinement as Psychiatric Observation
About two days later, one of the COs who’d escorted Lebron out of the unit comes to the pod to make his rounds. When he sees me, he tells me that Lebron is in solitary confinement and has attempted suicide several times.
“What’s he doing in solitary confinement?” I ask.
“That’s where we put inmates who are under psychiatric observation,” he casually replies before walking off.
My blood pressure skyrockets. If I were a cartoon character, I’d probably have steam shooting out of my ears. My intention had been to get Lebron treatment, not to get him thrown in solitary confinement. Having spent months in there myself, I’m well aware of how psychologically torturous that place is, especially for someone already in the throes of a mental illness. The fact that Lebron is now attempting suicide lets me know his condition has only gotten worse.
Mental Illness and Isolation
As of this writing, Lebron has been locked in solitary confinement for almost two weeks. Not for fighting, using drugs, or receiving any disciplinary infractions; but because the prison deemed him too mentally unstable to remain housed in general population.
A report by the Treatment Advocacy Center likened jails and prisons to “America’s new asylums,” given the fact that there are about 10 times as many people with severe mental illness behind bars as there are in state psychiatric hospitals. This is significant because it’s also been reported that mentally ill offenders, such as Lebron, are relegated to solitary confinement at a higher rate than other offenders, and that mentally ill offenders in solitary confinement attempt suicide at higher rates than other offenders.
Why Prison Reform Must Address Mental Illness
For COs and other prison staff who aren’t trained or equipped to handle mentally ill inmates, locking them away in solitary confinement is all too often their solution. Classifying it as “psychiatric observation” doesn’t change the fact that it’s a punishment—a capricious one at that. In light of the litany of prison reforms being made all across the country, prohibiting staff from placing mentally ill offenders in solitary confinement should be one of them. This will leave prisons no choice but to actually treat these individuals.
With such a law in place, Lebron wouldn’t be locked in isolation right now, trying to end his own life.
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