Bill Requires Mental Health Screenings by Texas Department of Criminal Justice Prior to Solitary Confinement Placement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Anna Núñez, ACLU of Texas, 713-942-8146, Ext. 110, [email protected]
AUSTIN – Today, the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice held a public hearing for HB 1083, which would require a mental health assessment by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for all inmates prior to placement in solitary confinement.This assessment is important because out of 6,564 people who are confined to solitary confinement within Texas prisons one-third have been diagnosed with mental illness.
The ACLU of Texas issued a report in February, A Solitary Failure: The Waste, Cost and Harm of Solitary Confinement in Texas, which recommended that the thousands of people with serious mental illness be excluded from solitary confinement. The conditions in which these people live impose such severe deprivations that they leave prison further mentally damaged. Yet in 2013, TDCJ released 1,243 people directly from solitary-confinement cells into Texas communities.
Terri Burke, executive director, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas:
"We encourage the Texas Legislature to pass this bill. Placement of people that are severely mentally ill in solitary confinement is costly and further damages people who will one day return to Texas communities. Reforms in HB 1083 would save taxpayers $33 million a year by reducing its rate of solitary confinement while also making our communities safer.”
