JACKSON — A psychiatrist called as a witness against the East Mississippi Correctional Facility testified Thursday that solitary confinement had severe and lasting psychological effects on all prisoners but especially those with mental illness. 

“My opinion, urgently, is to remove all prisoners with serious mental illness from solitary confinement,” Dr. Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist, said about the privately-run prison near Meridian.

Plaintiffs and defendants have estimated that 80 percent, or over 1,000, prisoners at EMCF has some form of a mental health diagnosis. 

Two inmates also testified about their experiences at EMCF. 

John Hale said he believed that gangs ran the facility because he said they assigned housing and ran the kitchens. He said he had been forced to move cells because of threats from gangs. 

Merlin Hill told the court Thursday afternoon that the prison didn’t fulfill his seizure or schizophrenia medication in a timely manner.

Hill visibly shook during his testimony, a side effect, he said, of not receiving his medication since Wednesday morning. The medication is supposed to be taken twice daily. 

According to prison logs presented by the plaintiff, medical staff said Hill refused to take the medication. Hill testified that he had never refused medication and that staff frequently let his prescription “run out.” 

Once, after 13 days, Hill filed a sick log request for his appropriate medication. Hill, who had been at EMCF for nearly 17 years, said that every month he goes at least a few days without one of his prescribed medications.

“Sometimes I have murderous thoughts, suicidal thoughts, pain in my head,” Hill said about withdrawals. “It’s unbearable sometimes… I’ve got bad pain behind my eyes and I’m shaking pretty badly. The pain goes away after the first day or two without my (medication).”

Solitary confinement

Unit 5, the focus of Thursday morning’s testimony, houses inmates in solitary confinement. 

Kupers has assisted as a consultant and provided testimony inputs cases against the Mississippi Department of Corrections, which oversees EMCF, concerning solitary confinement in Mississippi State Penitentiary, or Parchman. 

In the bench trial, which started March 5, Judge William H. Barbour Jr., of the U.S. Southern District Court in Jackson, will issue a judgement. 

Kupers frequently expressed surprise at the conditions he witnessed while touring EMCF on multiple occasions, most recently in May of 2016.

“I have never seen so many locks being tampered with and broken,” Kupers said. “I’ve never seen this many fires. I’ve never seen this many incidents of self-harm. I have never seen a facility where light bulbs don’t function. It’s a basic need of people.”

Kupers recommended that the prison decrease the size of its solitary confinement block and reduce the time that prisoners can be held in solitary to 14 days. 

“What we do know from the data is that the longer people spend in solitary confinement the worse the damage,” Kupers said, adding that many others advocated for completely abolishing solitary confinement. 

“The conditions in solitary confinement at EMCF are the worst I have witnessed in my 40 years as a forensic psychiatrist investigating jail and prison conditions,” Kupers said in a submitted report. 

Plaintiffs presented photos of doors with what appeared to be burn marks on several solid metal doors throughout the facility.

An illustration from the plaintiffs mapped out fires in Unit 5 and documented 66 fires between Feb. 25 and March 12, with a high of 11 fires on Feb. 26.

The defense asked Kupers about past work on solitary confinement conditions, of which Kupers said he’d testified in roughly 30 cases. Kupers said he nearly always worked with plaintiffs in these cases. 

During the cross examination, Kupers remained critical of the staff at EMCF. 

“I’ve never seen custody officers as callous and uncaring… never, in my 40 years of work,” Kupers said.

Attorneys representing the prison have argued during the trial the facility is under new management since the 2013 lawsuit was originally filed.

Since the lawsuit, EMCF was transferred from the GEO Group to the Management and Training Corporation, according to defense attorneys. For healthcare, the state contracted Health Assurance.