The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "prison mental illness" ...
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Hell Hole
The AZ Department of Corrections stuck a psychotic prisoner on the cusp of being released into a single person cell with a first-degree killer serving a lengthy sentence. The result: The killer mutilated and murdered the seriously mentally ill man, who was serving a short sentence for climbing up a power pole during an electrical storm.
Tags: Prison; Mentally Ill
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The Texas
Mentally disabled residents of a school in Texas were forced to be a part of a “fight club” run at night. The brutality of this was highly disturbing and it terrified these residents. Many of them tried to leave, but the staff members continuously forced them back and continued the abuse. Since all this information was revealed, these former staff members have been found guilty of felony charges of injury to the mentally ill and face time in prison.
Tags: mental health care; system; Texas State School; Corpus Christi; brawl; battle; struggle; state government; state facilities; civil rights
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Trapped in Tamms
The Tamms Correctional Center is touted as housing some of the worst criminals in the state. Yet state research revealed that many of the inmates were mentally ill and were left untreated. Lengthy consecutive sentences were frequently handed to prisoners who spit or threw body wastes at guards. Food and water was also withheld from inmates and punishments were often excessive.
Tags: Tamms; prisoners; correctional center; abuse; mental illness; crime; punishment; inmate; wastes; Anthony Gay;
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Failure to Report
After a 10-month long FOIA battle, Smith reveals internal-affairs reports about the suicides of two inmates who were mentally ill in the D.C. jail. The reports showed "an attempted cover-up and widespread misconduct by D.C. jail officials and a medical services contractor."
Tags: jail; prison; mental illness; FOIA; suicide; cover up; internal report; corrections officer; attorney general; Thomas Alemayehu; Alicia Edwards
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Unit 32: Mississippi Supermax
Unit 32, the super-maximum security facility at Mississippi State Penitentiary, has been the subject of scrutiny due to claims of harsh conditions for inmates. This review of the current conditions showed that Unit 32 had become "a dumping ground for the violent, the mentally ill, prison gang leaders, and newly arrived prisoners." "The stories continued through a summer of shocking violence as gang tensions within the unit overflowed."
Tags: Unit 32; Mississippi State Penitentiary; conditions of inmates; violence in prisons; metally ill;
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Breakdown: The Prison Suicide Crisis
The Globe looked at why Massachusetts' "prison suicide rate that has spiked to three times the national rate, over the last three years."
Tags: Department of correction; University of Massachusetts Medical School; mental illness; special treatment; prisoners;
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The Death of Timothy Souders
CBS investigated the death of mentally-ill Timothy Souders at the Southern Michigan Correctional Center. During their investigation they discovered that "inmates with psychological problems are more likely to get in trouble with corrections officers, and thus more likely to be sentenced to solitary confinement and to stay in prison longer."
Tags: prison; mentally ill; solitary confinement; Timothy Souders; state institutions; mental illness
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Head Games
Alan Pendergast, staffwriter for Denver's Westword reports that in 2004, 20% of Colorado's jail population was diagnosed with severe mental illness, and "the true number may be much higher, since some inmates' illnesses are never properly diagnosed." The story compares cost of psychiatric lock-up versus community mental health care. Pendergast advises other journalists doing similar stories should "insist that someone in the accontable chain of command review and comment on the records, even if the actual treatment providers are refusing to be interviewed."
Tags: prison mental illness; correctional systems; lockdown; supermax prison; ADHD; Department of Corrections; forensic psychiatry; head cases; administrative segregation; HIPPA; San Carlos Correctional Facility; Offenders WIth Serious Mental Illness; OSMI; National Institute on Drug Abuse; Mental Health Occupations Grievance Board
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Taking the Cuffs off at Carswell
Fort Worth Weekly reporter Betty Brink has been covering medical and sexual abuse of female inmates at Carswell Federal Medical Center, in Texas, since 1999. As a result of her coverage, and his own investigation, a retired judge, Ross Sears is asking for a Congressional investihgation into the deadly conditions at "the only prison hospital in the country for mentally or chronicallly ill or dying women who have been convicted of a federal crime."
Tags: medical negligence; sexual abuse; Carswell Federal Mediacal Center; medical records; Bureau of Prisons; FOI requests; U.S. Office of Special Counsel; Dr. Roger Guthrie; Ross Sears; retaliation; compassionate release; John Peter Smith Hospital; Tarrant County Medical Examiner; autopsies; prison deaths; women inmates; femaile prisoners; Baylor Regional Transplant Institute; Huguley Memorial Medical Center; brain damage; whistleblower complaints; medical malpractice; sentinel event; rape;
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Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness
This book interweaves two stories. The first details the author's struggle to help his adult son grapple with the public health system and find meaningful treatment after being diagnosed with a mental illness. The second story describes a year-long investigation in which the author examined the conditions under which psychotic prisoners are often kept. The two stories together show American abandons chronically mentally ill people.
Tags: mental health; illness; prison; public health; public safety; psychiatric patients