Torture Mentally Ill~ 9 mo. Solitary Confinement in Filth, Naked

Thank you.  I am followed, monitored, my communications controlled, and I have no idea what plans are made concerning me because of my prison advocacy and/or because of our lawsuit against The (Johnnie) Cochran Firm and all the different folks who had to help keep Larry Neal's death secret and not investigated for five years.  http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com.   

I catch hell!  I made a couple of YouTube videos telling folks about being entrapped at the neighborhood Chevron station by four cars of men talking on cell phones and milling around while my grandson and I stayed inside the store and called 911.  There was also a US DOT truck that just sat there the entire hour we were in the store.  When my niece came to help me get home (the police did not answer my emergency call!!), we started out of the driveway to the store.  Then the US DOT truck started out behind us.  I blew my horn and she and I parked again, and so did the truck.  We called the police again, then waited.  My son-in-law came -- and then I had two cars to sandwich me and get home.

I did not even try to go vote today.  I really hate that.  I guess I write so much about prisoners because I am one now - a prisoner in my home.  Just like all prisoners, I am monitored.  I have from one to three mics open on every computer I get, and I cannot turn the mics off.  They are nortorious and bold.  Isn't spying on citizens illegal any longer?

Do we still have free speech, or is it outlawed?  It has been so long since I took Social Studies, but I thought we still had it, until I began to ask officials, "Please tell me, what happened to Larry Neal."   Then I set out to alert the public to how their tax dollars were being spent to wrongly prosecute folks for being sick. 

I don't know much about the current laws.  Folks are pretty bold about censoring me.  StumbleUpon admitted it in writing.  Folks are bold about having me followed, too.  One Cochran Firm attorney who lives and works in Alabama wrote the judge in our present federal case against that firm and complained that I wrote them (along w/ 2000 others) about being followed home from work at night; but the only thing she did wrong in her pleading was that SHE TOLD WHAT COLOR THE VEHICLE WAS THAT WAS FOLLOWING ME.  Since I did not give the color in my email that went to her and 2000 others, and I never told anyone, wonder how she knew?

Let me know if this is still America, please.  I feel like it is some alter universe sometimes.

Mary

Hello, Gina.  Thank you for sharing your story with the readership.  I am so sorry Jeremy is in jail instead of a hospital or getting help in his community while living with you, if he is not too sick.  My brother, Larry, was really too sick to be with family.  He obeyed the folks in the home better and took his meds better for them.  However, Larry would sometimes act coy and leave in the morning before the psychiatric meds were handed out.  He did not mind taking his heart drugs, but he resisted being classified as mentally ill.  Our lawmakers may not fully understand, but I believe you and I know that many acute patients simply do not stay with their treatment, and that is how they wind up in jail for having a very common health condition. 

Criminalizing mental illness has made private prison profiteers very wealthy indeed!  $185 BILLION per year is the amount taxpayers spend on America's crime and punishment budget, with $50 billion going to prisons.  Much of that goes to private, for-profit corporations.  CCA, the private prison co. in this article, boasts an inmate population of 75,000!  Let us hope that private prison companies will begin to invest in modern, attractive hospitals for inpatient care, and in clinics for community treatment for mentally ill citizens.  Mental illness is about to be decriminalized in America, so it is time for wise entrepreneurs to re-invest!

THE LOVE OF MONEY is behind the three strikes laws, and tough sentencing laws for nonviolent crimes involving small amounts of drugs and countraband, etc.  We know that many mental patients also are drug users, because some try to use alcohol or drugs to self-medicate, rather than admitting their psychiatric problems and getting help, and sometimes, no help is available to them if they ask!  Therefore, lots of folks in jail on drug charges have that in common with Mr. Horton, who had a prior history of mental health problems.

The GOOD NEWS is that the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act is now Law.  You can read about it at this link:
http://my.nowpublic.com/health/mental-health-parity-now-law-land

Ms. Burns, if there is something you think my group or I could do for Jeremy, please write to me.  It may be best to comment again on this article or join Care2 and our group there - Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill, because my email boxes are often robbed of my emails before I get to read them. 

I will certainly keep you and Jeremy in my prayers and continue to work hard to decriminalize mental illness.

Blessings,

Mary

Gina, the whistle blower in this article went to the Dept. of Health and Human Services, I believe.  In any case, you should go there, I think.  Sometimes, it will not do to stay inside the box.  If prison officials and those who are above them will not do right, go outside the box to other federal agencies whose job it is to protect the civil rights of Americans.  It is illegal to treat anyone the way Mr. Horton was treated.  I hope that with this news going out, your son's prison will want to ensure this is not happening to Jeremy.  America punishes people for crimes, either assumed or actual, by imprisonment.  Torture is not supposed to be part of the deal. 

I know that rich people do their own thing often, and that folks in charge of protecting citizens can perhaps be bribed to look the other way while abuse continues.  However, make a paper trail, as I did, and be prepared to prove that folks ignored their responsibilities if your son is hurt in government custody (and he is in govt. custody, even if the govt. is hiring someone else to imprison him).  See what happened to my family here:  http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

Mary

Oh, Ben, I am so very sorry about your loss.  Your young cousin was apparently another casualty in this unjust justice system.  I believe in law and order, just not every law - and the order seems to be increasingly one where MONEY RULES.  If you are like me, you may have believed we have in America a free press which helps to monitor abuses of power among elected officials.  But we don't seem to really have a free press any longer, if we ever did have.  The media could investigate and let us know which elected officials and judges have stock in private prisons and have a vested interest in keeping them full by arresting citizens for long sentences for nonviolent crimes.  But the press will not do that. 

I don't know about you, Ben, but in God I trust.  I certainly never expected when my brother died to become an activist.  I believed he had "fallen through the cracks" in a system that was committed to protecting vulnerable citizens from suffering and even dying under incarceration for being sick.  Every time Larry had been arrested until his final arrest, his social worker or family would go and get him out of jail, and everything was fine.  I thought that is the way it would go forever, since they refused to re-hospitalize Larry.  But I guess someone got tired of him getting out of jail, and so finally, he did not emerge alive.

People whose faith is in money feel that they have all the power.  What they fail to acknowledge makes the Truth no less true.  For the Bible says, "Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all."  1 Chronicles 29:11-13

So, although it gets scary around here sometimes writing the articles I do which give you and people who suffer as your family suffers the opportunity to air your plight, I continue.  We will persevere until CHANGE comes!  Pray for me, if you pray.  If not, send positive vibes my way.

Blessings,

Mary

Thank you, we are all doing time!  Did you read the comments to this article?  So many people are affected by the cruelty of this justice system - imprisoning Americans for being sick in order to overcharge taxpayers for their containment!  It is awful.  Who on earth could have any respect for a system that does that? 

THE ARTICLE ABOVE with disturbing video footage illustrates plainly that there is a great need for CHANGE as it pertains to America's acute mental patients.  Non-violent patients should be returned to their communities under mandatory treatment provisions, and people who suffer with the worse cases of mental illness need and deserve treatment in decent hospitals with compassionate, skilled staff, not prison!

Announcement:  in order to overcome the censorship of our advocacy for incarcerated mental patients and the wrongful death of my mentally ill brother, Larry Neal, who was secretly arrested in Shelby County Jail in Memphis, TN for 18 days until death, we are going to start a webcast.  So many people spy on what I write on the Internet to for censorship purposes, that I feel it is a good idea to let the public see me write and work for justice, also.  See this news article (if they let you):  http://my.nowpublic.com/health/announcing-new-webcast-justice-quest-larry-neal-and-mentally-ill-americans

Mary

Thank you for your comments, Jenny.  The petition you wrote about and other petitions sponsored by Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill are available at this link:  http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/983754

Thank you for writing.  I am sorry to learn of your difficulty.  There is an organization that might be of help for you and your son, at least by way of support. Many other families suffer as you and your son are right now, unfortunately.  The organization is called STOPMAX (Google it).  Here is a news article about it.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/94257/stopmax:_the_fight_against_supermax_prisons_heats_up/

I remind our elected officials all the time that for every one of the 2.3 million inmates imprisoned inside American prisons and jails, there are likely at least ten  family members and friends (Voters) who care about how they are treated while serving time.  In fact, everyone is supposed to care, according to Hebrew 13:3, and many human rights activists care deeply. Christians are taught to care about prisoners and all less fortunate people, and many do. That probably brings the number of people who care deeply about prisoners' safety to around 30,000,000 people, most of whom are directly impacted by incarceration conditions.  There are a good number of prisoner rights groups at Yahoo groups that you may want to consider learning more about.

The fact that your son was arrested for a non-violent offense and now must learn to be tough does not surprise me.  In fact, 2/3 of the prisoners in America were arrested for non-violent offenses. American taxpayers are paying around $50,000 per year, per prisoner to be "saved" from boys who smoked a joint or financially challenged young moms who wrote a bad check, etc. 

I invite you to check out the link above (Articles link after my signature) for more of my articles, most of which center on justice issues.

God bless you and your son.  Feel free to comment again.  We would like to know if you found some groups to support you and offer you an effective way to advocate against solitary confinement.

Mary