Mentally Ill in Custody

This is an article I found to be interesting and relevant to our discussion of problems with confining mentally ill individuals. http://www.twincities.com/ci_11049839?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com

Pre-Release Party on Dec 10, 2008

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Coerced Confessions

Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to hear Darrell Cannon speak in class.  However, the topic of coerced confessions has been of great interest to me since taking a course that covered issues related to Psychology and Law.  Through my internship this semester I am working with a White Paper written about this topic.  [...]

Abortion Rights in Prison

An article about women’s reproductive rights in prison: Supreme Court Refuses Missouri Abortion Rights Appeal

Prisoners read children’s books

I came across this article online today.  It describes a program that was originally started in the UK but is now being used in Australian prisons.  While being recorded on a CD, inmates read children’s books aloud.  The books and recordings are then sent to their children.  This program promotes a parent-child relationship between the [...]

Timothy Souders; punished to the point of death?

I just read the article about the death of 21-year-old Timothy Souders while he was incarcerated in a segregation cell at Southern Michigan Correctional.  The article horrified me because of the multiple injustices involved in the case.  First of all, TS shouldn’t have been in solitary confinement when his conditions of bipolar disorder, hyperactivity and [...]

Reflections on Lisa Madigan’s Speech

On one hand, there was her side, stating that she and her office are “still looking at witness testimony and going back and looking at cases. We are working on a case-by-case basis.” “But the vast majority of the cases are over 20 years old.” So, is the age of the cases the defining factor why they should be ignored? The contrary seems more logical- the very fact that they are over 20 years old, they have not been reviewed properly and no one has been punished for the alleged torture incidents, grants them priority. They are not “just cases,” there are people who might be innocent and wasting away in prison.

I’m not a judge and don’t know all the specifities of all the Burge torture cases, so it would be extremely bias of me to just say “they are all innocent, let them go” and side with some of the protesters. But the point here is not about innocence, it is about the methods confessions were obtained and the right of those inmates to have a “fair and just” trial.

Telepsychiatry: The future of mental healthcare?

This article discusses the growth of telepsychiatry, the practice of psychiatry through video conferencing.  This technology is being used in hospitals, clinics, schools, and prisons.  The article highlights many advantages of telepsychiatry but does not discuss its shortcomings.  I think more time and research is needed before telepsychiatry can be deemed the preferred method of [...]

Juvenile Life Sentence

In Response to the Human Rights Watch Report entitled The Rest of Their Lives: Life without parole for child offenders in the United States. Found at  http://hrw.org/reports/2005/us1005/ I was blown away by the statistic that over 2,000 juveniles are currently serving a sentence of life without parole in the United States while in the rest [...]