The plight of the mentally ill

Got a keyboard? Help type articles, letters and study group discussions from prisoners. help out
[Abuse] [State Correctional Institution Rockview] [Pennsylvania]
expand

The plight of the mentally ill

I come to you today with news of an epidemic here at my home prison and prisons across the United $nakes of Amerika. I find myself amongst those who are seriously mentally ill. I’m in a step down program called the Residential Treatment Unit (RTU), where I will be housed for at least 90 days. I’m stepping down from a control unit called the Secure Residential Treatment Unit (SRTU). I’m finally in general population after four consecutive years in a control unit, AKA solitary confinement.

I look around me with disgust ,not at the people but the warehousing of the severely mentally ill. I wonder, why are most of these people even in jail. These people belong in a mental hospital, receiving treatment, not punishment. Oh, yeah, that’s right, the Obama administration closed most of the state psychiatric facilities and deemed it appropriate to warehouse these poor people in prison, under the guise of mental health treatment units.

Prison is prison, regardless of what you choose to label it. And the pigs treat these people with hate and contempt, abusing them verbally and sometimes physically. It sickens me. Anyone who defends capitalism, imperialism and the prison industrial complex are sadistic fools. Clearly this system is not working. Clearly, now more than ever, do we need an armed revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat. I will continue to struggle against oppression. I will die with these words on my lips: resist, resist, resist. I will have no peace until the liberation bells sound loud and clear, music to my ears.

chain