Unkept Mental Patient Chained to Prison Wall

The photo depicts the condition of mentally ill inmates as seen by Dorothea L. Dix in the 1800's.  Unfortunately, things have not changed as much as you might like to think.  This man is naked.  Most acute mental patients are still kept naked in prison to prevent self-harm.  I read that they are not even given mattresses for the same reason, and have to sleep on naked, cold steel.  The man in the photo is bound to the wall, shackled at the ankles.  These days, there are restraint chairs, where unruly acute mental patients are bound so tight that their struggling would kill them by strangulation, which happened to singer Sean LeVert, I understand.  He actually died in the hospital a few hours after his restraint chair experience.  Like many people, he was on prescription drugs for his condition and became unruly when deprived of the meds.  That is when he was restrained. 

IT STILL HAPPENS!  SEE THE VIDEO!  http://my.nowpublic.com/health/torture-mentally-ill-9-mo-solitary-confinement-filth-naked

The man in the photo is unkept - his hair matted.  If he defecates or unrinates, he will have to live in it.  That happened last year to Willie Horton in a CCA-owned facility in Nashville, TN.  Mr. Horton was arrested for drugs.  Many mentally ill people attempt to self-medicate for their nervousness by misusing drugs and alcohol.  A kind prison guard probably saved Mr. Horton's life by going to the Dept. of Human Services and reporting on his employer.  The prison guard had watched Mr. Horton's deterioating condition in the dark solitary confinement cell until he felt he had to take action.  Horton's hair was matted and his skin diseased after nine months of living in filth.  Sixty percent of the 25,000 people who are in solitary confinement as you read this are mentally ill.  That is how America treats its weakest citizens, unfortunately.  Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill advocates to change that.  Visit online today - http://Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

100% of the police officers I asked whether mentally ill people belong in jails and prisons answered "NO."  Contrary to what some people believe, many of our law enforcement officers have a heart - they care.  The guard who became Mr. Horton's Good Samaritan risked his own financial welbeing to rescue a sick inmate.  Think about that the next time someone tells you that all police officers and prison guards are heartless.  It's simply not true.  The imprisonment of mentally ill people in the U.S. is coming from higher up.

Not so long ago, mentally ill people were in hospitals or treated in their communities, if they could maintain themselves outside of confinement.  It costs no more to hospitalize sick people than it does to treat them in prisons.