By Jennifer Brown
The Denver Post
DENVER — Nearly 90 Colorado prisoners with serious mental illness were locked in solitary confinement this year — and many had been there for at least four years — despite legal and expert recommendations that prisons stop “warehousing” the mentally ill in 23-hour-a-day isolation.
An 18-month study by the ACLU of Colorado also found the proportion of mentally ill prisoners held in solitary confinement increased from 2011 to 2012, even as the state prison system decreased the overall number of inmates in solitary.
Prisoners with moderate to severe mental illness now make up the majority of those in solitary, also called “administrative segregation,” according to the report, obtained by The Denver Post and to be released Tuesday. The 87 prisoners with serious mental illness in solitary have diseases including schizophrenia and severe depression.
There were 684 prisoners in administrative segregation as of June 30,, or 3.9 percent of the inmate population, according to the corrections department.
Full story: ACLU uncovers increased proportion of mentally ill inmates in solitary