ACLU: Treatment of mentally ill prisoners lacking in Montana

The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana said Friday the state prison and hospital have a woefully inadequate system of treating mentally ill prisoners, denying them proper care and violating their rights.

In a strongly worded 21-page report, the ACLU and an advocacy group said a lengthy investigation of the system showed frequent denial of treatment, withholding of medication and the unconstitutional use of solitary confinement to punish mentally ill inmates.

"Often they are put in solitary confinement for something they did, which is a product of their mental illness," said Anna Conley, a staff attorney for the ACLU in Missoula. "The response to those acts should not be isolation."

According to Conley and the report, the ACLU and Disability Rights Montana http://www.disabilityrightsmt.org , an advocacy group for the mentally ill and the disabled, hope to work with the state on addressing problems identified in the report.

By Mike Dennison

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