Self-Diagnosis
Paul Pfeifer writes in today's LA TIMES ("Accused killer called fit to share jail cell") a follow-up to his article yesterday ("Jailers are asked how killer was able to strike again"), which I also blogged ("The Immensity of the Process"). The new reported statements are worth looking at because they illustrate how efforts to make needed change can get sidetracked.
L.A. County Jail inmate Kurt Karcher had been in a one-man prison cell for over a year and under treatment in state prison for bipolar disorder. This mentally-disturbed, alleged former white- supremacist gangmember, convicted of killing an attorney, and allegedly having admitted strangling to death his state prison cellmate, was nevertheless housed by the County with a Latino jail cellmate, whom he also allegedly strangled to death 4 days later.
L.A. County jail and California state prison officials have asserted that county jailers weren't told Karcher's background of insanity, racism, and murder, because the state didn't think it was necessary.
As I explained in yesterday's blog, there is reason to suspect that jailers did know of Karcher's background and locked an inmate of another race in with him anyway.
Today, we have a report that the jail mental health workers certified him as safe for general housing. This is a fresh "office error" explanation for the incident. L.A. County Jail psychologist Robert Fish offers that "some of our most severely disturbed inmates with mental illness deny they have problems." So, he implies, housing errors like this one result.
That's not very persuasive. A hallmark of mental illness is that the sufferer is convinced he or she is fine. That's no news. Dr. Fish implies that jail mental health workers must nevertheless simply rely on prisoner self-diagnosis in making their housing recommendations, either without asking for, or without looking at, records that might disclose a background of, for example, racism, mental illness, and in-custody homicide.
In addition to being fairly implausible, Dr. Fish's statements don't address the real issue. Didn't the state tell the county jail about Karcher's history? Withholding such information would have put county jail guards at risk of injury or death. So it's unlikely the information was, in fact, withheld by the state correctional system.
Dr. Fish's statements simply steer the discussion away from the holes in the officials' story, and into a relatively inoffensive examination of mental health cell assignment procedures. If things continue in that direction, the County will end up having to look at changing an office protocol. A few months later, they'll decide they don't have to make an adjustment, or that they do have to make an adjustment. But the question of whether procedures were ignored in this case, and what, if anything, to do about that, will have fallen by the wayside.
That's the way it works.
L.A. County Jail inmate Kurt Karcher had been in a one-man prison cell for over a year and under treatment in state prison for bipolar disorder. This mentally-disturbed, alleged former white- supremacist gangmember, convicted of killing an attorney, and allegedly having admitted strangling to death his state prison cellmate, was nevertheless housed by the County with a Latino jail cellmate, whom he also allegedly strangled to death 4 days later.
L.A. County jail and California state prison officials have asserted that county jailers weren't told Karcher's background of insanity, racism, and murder, because the state didn't think it was necessary.
As I explained in yesterday's blog, there is reason to suspect that jailers did know of Karcher's background and locked an inmate of another race in with him anyway.
Today, we have a report that the jail mental health workers certified him as safe for general housing. This is a fresh "office error" explanation for the incident. L.A. County Jail psychologist Robert Fish offers that "some of our most severely disturbed inmates with mental illness deny they have problems." So, he implies, housing errors like this one result.
That's not very persuasive. A hallmark of mental illness is that the sufferer is convinced he or she is fine. That's no news. Dr. Fish implies that jail mental health workers must nevertheless simply rely on prisoner self-diagnosis in making their housing recommendations, either without asking for, or without looking at, records that might disclose a background of, for example, racism, mental illness, and in-custody homicide.
In addition to being fairly implausible, Dr. Fish's statements don't address the real issue. Didn't the state tell the county jail about Karcher's history? Withholding such information would have put county jail guards at risk of injury or death. So it's unlikely the information was, in fact, withheld by the state correctional system.
Dr. Fish's statements simply steer the discussion away from the holes in the officials' story, and into a relatively inoffensive examination of mental health cell assignment procedures. If things continue in that direction, the County will end up having to look at changing an office protocol. A few months later, they'll decide they don't have to make an adjustment, or that they do have to make an adjustment. But the question of whether procedures were ignored in this case, and what, if anything, to do about that, will have fallen by the wayside.
That's the way it works.
Labels: civil rights, human rights, jail death, Kurt Karcher, L.A. County Jail, Robert Fish, Stuart Pfeifer
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