A Day in the Life of a Mental Health Team in a Solitary Confinement Unit
This excerpt from “Lockdown on Rikers,” recalls an incident that occurred during my first week as an Assistant Mental Health Chief in the Rikers Island 500-cell Punitive Segregation Unit. *********************** On my second day at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center, I was in my office in the clinic when I received a call from one of our psychiatrists, Dr. Diaz. He requested that I come up to the 4th floor of the Central Punitive Segregation Unit, otherwise known as “the Bin
“If I’m good, will they let me go home?”
Managing the Mentally Ill through the Justice System – the
I first met “Kelly Thomas” while I was an intern in the Mental Health Department on Rikers Island. With the IQ of a small child, and a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the twenty-seven-year old Kelly Thomas had been transferred to the Mental Observation Unit upon her arrival at the women’s jail. Her crime? A couple of weeks earlier, Kelly had entered a residential program for the mentally ill. As soon as she’d settled in, the other patients began picking on her. When a group o
Is Closing Rikers Island Really the Answer?
When I worked in the Rikers Island Mental Health Department in the late 90’s, I was frequently called to the “Receiving Room” to assess newly arrested inmates who appeared to have psychiatric issues—the disheveled, the ones who were muttering to themselves, those who stood apart from the rest, ranting to the world, and to no one. I asked them the usual litany of psych questions: Do you know where you are right now? Do you ever hear voices? Have you ever taken psychiatric medi
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