Isolating A New York State Of Mind

Eliot Spitzer, New York's governor, has on his desk a bill from that state's Legislature that would reform how the mentally ill are treated in New York's prisons. The basic story is that they don't get appropriate treatment--what's lacking seems to be mostly of the psychological kind--and, as a result, end up in isolation cells far more than your average con. Amazingly, Spitzer is against this bill's reforms, claiming they'll cost too much money. Liz Spikol has an appropriate response and the New York Times' editorial board is calling on Spitzer to sign the legislation. As he should. If not, perhaps some isolation time might be in order for the Guv.

Isolation is bad for humans, even prisoners, and people simply fall apart without some level of human contact. More to the point, isolation units in prisons are more commonly known as "seg" as in segregation. Or "the hole." There's a reason for that, of course, and I'm sure no one here needs to guess very hard at it. I've actually seen seg units at a couple of different prisons--in a professional capacity of course. You don't want to spend five minutes in one.

Interestingly, the fine folks at the Treatment Advocacy Center have nothing to say about any of this. But plenty to say about some deranged fellow in Rome who tried to have a personal audience with the Pope. They especially fancied the forced treatment he was to receive at the hands of the Vatican's docs. "Although perhaps not in the way he expected, Roberto Sperling’s encounter with the Pope may have resulted in a minor miracle after all," notes the blog. Nice TAC-y touch there.

Thanks to Anders for passing along the link to the editorial.