Dec. 19, 2007 — The issue of care for mentally ill inmates in the territory's correctional facilities has been a repeating topic in the local — and most recently — national press, including a report Wednesday on National Public Radio (NPR).
For years, the federal government has asked the V.I. Department of Justice to comply with court orders dealing with providing proper care to mentally ill inmates. The territory's attorney general says the department is trying to find a way to deal with the problem.
On Wednesday, NPR's "Morning Edition" broadcast a story about Jonathan Ramos, a chronic schizophrenic incarcerated in the Virgin Islands since 2002. The story was also published on the NPR website. The story says Ramos initially got "locked up" after riding off on a bicycle taken from the "Wal-Mart on St. Thomas." Though the government subsequently dropped the charges, Ramos has remained in jail because there is no other facility available on island to house and treat mentally ill inmates, the story says.
Similar situations are occurring in several other mainland jurisdictions, which are finding themselves overburdened with "taking care of their own mentally ill," a Government House spokesperson said Wednesday.
"Since the department has been trying to resolve these issues, once of the biggest obstacles it has encountered is that so many other states are themselves overburdened and challenged with taking care of their own patients," said Jean P. Greaux Jr. "Several of them have simply refused to take anyone out of state."
The NPR article starts off by saying, "There is a place where seriously mentally ill people are locked away for years in prison with little treatment because there is nowhere else to put them. Is this Romania? China? Nope. It's the U.S. Virgin Islands, whose residents are supposed to be protected by the U.S. Constitution."
Cases like Ramos' have been the driving force behind lawsuits brought against the V.I. government by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the federal Department of Justice. The ACLU filed its class-action lawsuit in 1994, alleging widespread rights' abuses in prisons on St. Thomas. The charges ranged from poor sanitary conditions to the abuse of mentally ill inmates.
U.S. District Judge Stanley Brotman subsequently ruled in favor of the ACLU, and has found the territory in contempt of court several times for failure to improve the conditions. Though Brotman noted in March that "considerable improvements" have been made to prison and detention facilities on St. Thomas, the ACLU has since asked the court to fine the territory's top government officials for not complying with orders to transfer the inmates with mental illnesses to a psychiatric hospital.
The ACLU is also requesting an overhaul of the health-care system at the Alexander A. Farrelly Criminal Justice Complex on St. Thomas, and is calling on Brotman to appoint a receiver to rebuild the correctional health-care system. (See "Judge Asked to Fine V.I. for Jailing Mentally Ill.")
In the NPR story, Attorney General Vincent Frazer says the government does not currently have a forensic hospital for housing mentally ill inmates, but is working on getting one.
"We recognize there have been lapses and misunderstandings as to the responsibilities, and that having these people placed in a jail setting or prison setting is not what is statutorily mandated in the (Virgin Islands), and is not good for their treatment," he said.
The government is actively "seeking placement for all the mentally ill" currently in the charge of the Bureau of Corrections, Greaux added Wednesday.
"The Department of Justice has been working out an arrangement with the Department of Health to take over the treatment of the mentally ill," he said. "In the case of Mr. Ramos, the department has been working to get something in place. We thought he could first be admitted to the Schneider Hospital, but that proved to be unsuitable, given his condition and the lack of available resources and specialized treatment."
The department has since identified a psychiatric hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where Ramos could be safely housed and treated, Greaux said.
"We are in the final steps now to secure this transfer," he said. "And, as I mentioned before, the government is actively pursuing this agreement with the Department of Health to assist with taking care of the other inmates. This is not something that we're taking lightly — it's something that we're aggressively working to take care of."
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