Critique/Commentary

WATCHDOG FINDS ATTICA’S MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT UNIT IS HAVEN FOR ABUSE AND NEGLECT

This article focuses on "Attica's Mental Health Treatment Unit" and what is wrong with their program. To quickly sum up the program, people incarcerated in the RMHU (Residential Mental Health Unit) remain in their cells for at least 19 hours a day. They are to be let out for four hours each weekday to participate in other programming and get one hour for recreation. Though it seems to be a practical solution, I agree with their argument that the RMHU is supposed to be a therapeutic alternative to punitive solitary confinement, but in reality there are many similarities between the two. For one at Attica, they have "Out-Of-Cell Restrictions" that are not respectful or up to code. The article says that when out-of-cell restrictions are in place, prison staff are supposed to provide “alternative mental health treatment or other therapeutic programming.”and their solution is a simple cell-side interview. This is a conversation between mental health staff and the patient at their cell door. This does not qualify as effective mental health care. Such interactions are devoid of privacy and having such conversations through a cell door, and sometimes a shield, are not conducive to treatment. Officers can overhear what are supposed to be private and intimate conversations, the fear of which prevents some individuals from even having conversations at all. This is only one example of the abuse and neglect that is happening within the unit. I agree with the article, Attica's Mental Health Treatment Unit has its faults, and is in need of a desperate change. No one, especially those who have been diagnosed with serious mental illness, should be treated so carelessly and inhumanely.