Recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month for over 70 years, May is a time to raise awareness of mental and behavioral health issues. Resources and resources are available to you and your incarcerated loved ones throughout the year; Support does not have to end at the end of the month.
In 2022, the National Alliance on Mental Illness reported that 2 in 5 inmates had a history of mental illness (37% in state and federal prisons and 44% in local prisons). Almost 66% of incarcerated women reported a history of mental illness, nearly double the percentage of incarcerated men. However, less than a quarter of these individuals receive treatment while in detention. As a family member of an incarcerated person, it is important to talk about the challenges, stigma and needed solutions related to mental illness.
Lamoille Health Partners suffered a ransomware attack
Lamoille Health Partners in Vermont recently confirmed that it was the victim of a ransomware attack on June 13, 2022. Immediate action was taken to prevent further attacks being allowed. Access to their systems and an outside digital forensics company was hired to help with the investigation. According to Lamoille Health Partners, it was possible to safely restore encrypted files from backups without paying a ransom; However, the forensic investigation confirmed that the attackers had access to their systems between June 12, 2022 and June 13, 2022 and during that time documents containing protected patient health information.
On June 24, 2022, Lamoille Health Partners determined that the documents that may have been accessed contained patient information such as names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, health insurance information, and medical treatment information. 59,381 individuals were notified that their protected health information was disclosed. Free identity protection and credit screening services were offered to people whose social security numbers were exposed.
Summary
Prison advocacy allows incarcerated people across the country access to the court system as pro se plaintiffs, but self-represented litigants face damaging obstacles to achieving justice. A partnership between prisoners who make prose statements and appointed attorneys is essential to bridging the gap between the state’s vast resources and those of the prisoners, who are endowed with persistence, resourcefulness, and often only electric typewriters or ballpoint pens. Professional defense provided by attorneys and large law firms provides prisoners with adequate resources and reduces restrictions on preparing briefs and conducting legal investigations during incarceration. The collaboration between attorneys and inmates allows for the professional presentation of novel arguments, backed by supporting evidence created within the prison walls.
Despite administrative and systemic obstacles that limit advocacy for pro se, a group of spouses at San Quentin State Prison were able to expose the de facto “no parole” policy of the Parole Hearings Committee , by flooding the system with habeas petitions The Board’s consistent denial of probation for committing offenses based on the “heinousness” of the offense, in violation of the law, which requires probation to be normally granted a conditional liberty.
These San Quentin companions asserted their right to individual treatment and eventually received parole for their life sentences. His litigation involved violations of the First and Eighth Amendments, blaming the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for the falsification of evidence in criminal trials and the mistreatment of prisoners living with HIV and physical and mental disabilities. Reports from these pro-litigants inform current section 1170(d) post-sentencing efforts, which often fail to contextualize an inmate’s incarceration story within the abyss of prison life, that “it’s not exactly an ideal therapeutic environment, to say the least.”
Criminal courts lack the insurgent knowledge of prison brutality and dysfunction that traumatizes most prisoners. If this knowledge of the insurgents were presented to them in a way that they could fully understand, the judges would likely conclude that “continued detention is no longer in the interests of justice”.