From l to R: Steve Brown, exec director of RI ACLU; James Rollins, ACLU Cooperating Attorney and a partner at Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, LLP in Boston; Amy Fettig of the ACLU Prison Project; Morna Murray, exec.director of Disability R… — From l to R: Steve Brown, exec director of RI ACLU; James Rollins, ACLU Cooperating Attorney and a partner at Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, LLP in Boston; Amy Fettig of the ACLU Prison Project; Morna Murray, exec.director of Disability Rights RI; and Charles Feldman of the oasis Wellness and Recovery Centers RI * Photo Courtesty of Disability Rights RI

By Gina Macris

Disability Rights Rhode Island, formerly the RI Disability Law Center, has joined with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in filing a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of prison inmates with mental illness.

The announcement of the lawsuit on Oct. 25 also signaled that the re-framed Disability Rights Rhode Island will shift to a more systemic approach and aggressive stance in protecting vulnerable populations – including those with developmental disabilities.

In a press conference in Providence, Disability Rights Rhode Island, the ACLU’s National Prison Project and the ACLU’s Rhode Island affiliate announced the class action suit, which seeks to end the alleged inhumane and unconstitutional use of solitary confinement to punish inmates with serious mental illnesses, resulting in their further psychological deterioration. The complaint also seeks other sweeping changes in the treatment of inmates disabled by mental illness.

The lawsuit against the Rhode Island Department of Corrections alleges that the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) “subjects hundreds of people to prolonged solitary confinement in tiny, frequently filthy cells where they are kept locked down for 22 to 24 hours a day for weeks, months, and even years at a time,” according to a statement.

These inhumane conditions “subject individuals to serious psychological harm and increasingly acute symptoms” such as anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, paranoia, agitation, and suicidal ideation, according to a joint statement issued by the lawyers on behalf of six principal plaintiffs.

After a legislative commission recommended changes to the ACI’s treatment of inmates with mental illnesses in 2017, the Department of Corrections set up an alternative Residential Treatment Unit, but the plaintiffs say it is wholly inadequate.

Despite scores of inmates in solitary confinement on any given day, the Residential Treatment Unit has a capacity of only 8 men, and there is no alternate facility for women inmates with mental illness, the plaintiffs said.

At the press conference, Morna Murray, the new executive director of Disability Rights Rhode Island, recalled that a former director of behavioral health for the Department of Corrections, psychologist Louis Cerbo, told the state legislative commission on solitary confinement in 2017 that the ACI is the “the largest psychiatric hospital in Rhode Island.”

At the same time, Cerbo’s testimony indicated that the previous year, in 2016, the Department of Corrections had only 11 clinical social workers for a prison population of 3,000, Murray recalled.

A corrections staff untrained in the symptoms of mental illness and the appropriate de-escalation techniques instead uses force –particularly pepper spray – as the reaction of first resort to control inmates, Murray said.

After the press conference, Murray said the organization’s name change and its participation in the lawsuit represent a shift in approach.

“We are increasingly looking to create change on a larger and more systemic level. We know we can effect change for a much larger number of individuals with disabilities that way,“ she said.

Improvements in behavioral healthcare for ACI inmates is the organization’s top priority in the coming year, according to a redesigned website, Disability Rights RI, which is still undergoing improvements, Murray said.

“We will always continue to take individual cases, but we also have staff dedicated to the kind of aggressive and systemic change that this class action lawsuit represents,” Murray said. A more concentrated focus on systemic change will inevitably mean the disability rights lawyers on staff will be unable to take as many individual cases, she said.

But the organization is developing new group training sessions, webinars, and other resources to help creating many more resources, trainings and webinars to help individuals, parents and families to have the capacity to advocate for themselves when they can, Murray said.

“We are presently looking at other issues in the state that may lend themselves to larger actions, either legally or administratively with respect to state agencies,” she said. Before arriving in Rhode Island earlier this year, Murray headed the Connecticut state developmental disability agency, overseeing services for 17,000 people. She has spent most of her career as a public interest lawyer in the private sector, advocating for vulnerable populations.

Disability Rights Rhode Island is one of a nationwide network of federally funded protection and advocacy organizations mandated by Congress in 1975 after the exposure of inhumane conditions at Willowbrook, an institution for people with developmental disabilities on Staten Island. Murray may be contacted at mmurray@drri.org