A federal judge has ruled conditions at the David Wade Correctional institute are so severe they violate the constitutional rights of men housed in solitary confinement. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Foote ruled some conditions amounted to physical and mental torture.
Melanie Bray is assistant director of legal services at Disability Rights, Louisiana. Her group brought the suit on behalf of a group of inmates. She says in one instance the staff poked fun at a mentally ill inmate.
“They would make him get down on his knees and beg for his food and bark like a dog and then break it up in little pieces and throw it at him through the bars.”
The prison is located in Homer, Louisiana.
The court found conditions in the prison’s South Compound solitary wing served as a repository for the mentally ill.
”Men who didn’t already have a mental illness began developing symptoms such as hallucinations, depression, anxiety, simply as a result of being locked in these cells 24 hours a day,” Bray said
Despite the ruling, Bray doesn’t expect conditions at the prison to improve immediately.
She says the next phase of the trial will be the remedy phase in January, where both sides will present experts.
“And then the judge is going to rule, make determinations as to what they need to do to change to make conditions there constitutional,” Bray said
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