Mental health care in Illinois prisons has been debated, investigated and litigated for decades, with little consequence for the more than 12,000 detainees who need counseling, medication and other therapy. For almost two decades, Chicago attorney Harold Hirshman has been on the frontlines of the fight to create a mental health care system for Illinois prisoners.
As a journalist who covered legal affairs, including the correctional system at all levels, for over three decades, I followed the efforts by Hirshman and a team of dedicated lawyers to make life better for mentally ill inmates, many of them severely mentally ill.
After 16 years of litigation in federal court in a lawsuit first filed by inmate Ashoor Rasho, it seemed that the two sides had reached an agreement with benchmarks for specific improvements and a monitoring system to ensure the plan was implemented and followed. All that plan and progress was erased in a stunning decision by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mihm in which he ruled that he no longer had jurisdiction over the Rasho case and ordered its dismissal.
Today, the system lacks an independent monitor and the requirements to staff and implement a plan are unfulfilled.
Hirshman recently contacted me about his intention to release major documents in Rasho to the public. The goal is to educate people about the conditions in state prisons and share exactly what is at stake if conditions do not improve. I readily agreed to post the documents—information that details what Hirshman describes as “the problem that won’t go away”–on my website.
The documents will be released in five separate Newsmakers blogs. The incremental release will allow readers to absorb each part of the story that includes a total of more than 100 pages. In his opening commentary, Hirshman explains what is contained in each portion of the document release.
We start with reports from two experts on the Department of Corrections’ mental health care in late 2023. Below are links to those reports and a link to a story I authored on the reports for WGLT during my time there as a correspondent. Please feel free to share the links.
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:va6c2:533653d4-b0e4-4d79-926c-1a0d6b6fc996
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