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File Name | S22-Policy-NCFCA-07-AFF-MentalHealth.docx |
File Size | 364.53 KB |
Date added | September 13, 2021 |
Category | Policy (NCFCA) |
Author | Vance Trefethen |
Resolved: The United States Federal Government should significantly reform its policies regarding convicted prisoners under federal jurisdiction
Case Summary: This plan reforms and increases mental health care treatment for federal prisoners. A federal Bureau of Prison (BOP) policy change in 2014 plus Trump budget cuts in 2016 led to a massive reduction in mental health care services for federal inmates. BOP responded to the changes by simply reclassifying most of the mental cases as not serious enough and cut them out of the treatment. That’s a bad idea because untreated mental illness is a really bad problem inside prison and leads to more problems after they get out.
This plan goes back to the pre-2014 standards and increases funding to get all necessary mental health care provided to federal prisoners. If Neg argues that there are more prisoners needing treatment than our plan accounts for, the funding will more than cover it, and such an argument will only increase the validity of the AFF harms. It costs about $71,000/year above normal costs to properly treat a prisoner for mental illness.
This plan also invokes the 8th Amendment (prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment”) for enforcement, as advocated by our evidence. The Supreme Court did something similar to our Plan in 2011 when the state of California’s prisons were massively overcrowded. The overcrowding led to denial of physical and mental health care, and state prisoners were suffering and dying. Federal courts ordered California to either increase the capacity of its prisons, transfer prisoners elsewhere, or release some early.
When California dragged their feet, the Court told them to start sending them home early because the 8th Amendment violations were so awful. Details on this are in the Brown v. Plata decision quoted in this case. Our experts argue that the 8th Amendment and its remedies should apply to lack of mental health care, not only lack of physical health care (although Brown v. Plata touched on both). In Brown v Plata, the Court left it up to the State of California as to which prisoners would be released early, and California was able to release the least violent, least dangerous, least time left on their sentence, etc. prisoners, without creating any public safety crisis. This is important because it’s a precedent where the plan has been tried before and in the extreme scenario where the enforcement really has to kick in, it will work.
Note: “DSM” is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Considered the “bible” of the psychiatric profession, it’s an official definition of the diagnosis and symptoms of mental illness.