Mental health services in Illinois prisons are among the worst in the country, creating “abysmal and harmful” conditions for staff and inmates, with Pontiac Correctional Center fostering a “disgusting and neglected environment,” according to a consultant’s report on mental health care in Illinois facilities.

The report by Sharen Barboza is one of three reports on prison conditions recently compiled for lawyers for inmates involved in federal lawsuits on inmate health care. The two other reports relate to racial disparities in use of force incidents at Pontiac and Menard prisons and low inpatient numbers at a Joliet mental health treatment center.

Harold Hirschman, one of the inmates' attorneys, said the reports are part of an ongoing effort to challenge widespread deficiencies in inmate health care, including services to 12,000 prisoners who receive mental health care. Those efforts suffered a serious setback last year when a federal appeals court rejected a settlement agreement in the Ashoor Rasho lawsuit that put in place improvements to mental health services in Illinois prisons.

“When Rasho was dismissed, we had a court order, or an agreed court order, that the system would be tested for constitutionality as of Sept. 30 of last year and all the extra work and all the discovery pointed towards being able to show what the system looked like then. The dismissal means all that it’s not clear when, if ever, we’re going to have a trial on the conditions in the system,” said Hirshman.

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