Experts retained as part of a federal lawsuit over the treatment of mentally ill people being held at Allegheny County Jail said the facility’s mental health care is “shockingly substandard.”

The expert reports filed this month in federal court blamed the problems on issues including:

A shortage in medical staffing. A lack of training for both medical and correctional staff. A lack of privacy for discussions involving mental health concerns. Punishment for inmates seeking mental health treatment. Continued overuse of solitary confinement, which had been banned through a countywide referendum in 2021.

“Sadly, I have to conclude this report with the overall assessment that the (jail) fails in its mission, the mental health treatment program and rehabilitation programs are not at all adequate, and the inadequacies of the mental health treatment and rehabilitation programs lead to the overutilization of use of force and solitary confinement,” wrote psychiatrist Dr. Terry Kupers.

That “diminishes rather than enhances the success of offenders’ reintegration into society,” Kupers added.

Two expert reports are part of the 2020 lawsuit filed against the jail and its leadership by the Abolitionist Law Center and the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project on behalf of several people being held there.

The complaint, the result of a year-and-a-half investigation, alleges a gross failure on the part of the jail to care for those with mental illness.

The case is still making its way through court and is not yet scheduled for trial.

Kupers said in his 147-page report that meaningful mental health treatment is not provided at the jail until symptoms are so acute that the person is “imminently suicidal.”

“Patients are ignored unless they express suicidal ideation, and if they do express such thoughts, they are mocked. And officers are quick to use force against prisoners with mental illness,” he wrote.

Challenged to meet needs

Dr. Ashley Brinkman, who serves as the jail’s health services administrator, said in a disposition that 75% of the jail’s population is prescribed at least one psychotropic medication, according to Kupers.

Despite that, there is a lack of available mental health staff to care for them.

Kupers, who did a tour of the jail and interviewed inmates in person and by video, said most interaction with mental health staff occurs at the front of jail cells where there is no privacy.

“There is shockingly little in the way of talking between prisoners and mental health clinicians,” Kupers wrote. “Prisoners universally tell me there are long delays, a lack of follow-up and they can be beaten or tased for even asking to meet with mental health staff.”

Staffing, Kupers said, is “grossly inadequate.”

Brinkman said during her deposition that there are often no psychiatrists at the jail because positions remain unfilled, Kupers added.

A report offered to the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board by Warden Orlando Harper said the jail had 66 vacancies in health care staffing.

Vacancies included ones for health services administrator, three deputy health services administrators, director of mental health programs, five mental health specialists, one psychiatric director, one psychiatrist and one psychologist.

The report showed there is one psychiatrist for the facility.

Jail spokesman Jesse Geleynse said he could not comment on the lawsuit, but in a written statement addressed the issue of mental health treatment in correctional systems.

“People with mental illness are overrepresented in the nation’s jails. Correctional systems across the country have become de facto mental health providers and are challenged to meet the vast needs of the increasing number of inmates with mental health conditions,” Geleynse said in a written statement.

“The county jail is no exception and has continued to work to address and expand services. The relationship with the Department of Human Services is integral to this work,” he added.

In addition to addressing mental health care, the two expert reports also addressed solitary confinement and the jail’s use of a restraint chair.

Corrections staff was banned from using both of those items following the countywide referendum in 2021.

Kupers wrote in his report that the restraint chair has been replaced by officers with “long guns that loudly shoot rubber or wooden blocks … and their use terrifies prisoners with mental illness and has other harmful effects.”

“So while they may have complied with the express prohibition on the use of the restraint chair, they have replaced it with another practice designed to intimidate,” he said.

As for solitary confinement, Kupers said jail administrators have not complied with the referendum banning it. Instead, they have created separate cages where prisoners can be moved out of their cells for four hours each day. However, few of those incarcerated choose to be moved and therefore are in “de facto solitary confinement,” Kupers wrote.

‘Systemic and gross deficiencies’

The second expert report was prepared by Bradford Hansen, a retired warden who spent 42 years working in corrections. He was asked to review the jail’s use-of-force policy, its customs and practices and its use of solitary confinement.

He concluded there was a pattern of policy violations and failure to protect people being held in the jail; a failure to train staff in alternatives to use of force; and evidence that jail staff used force against mentally ill inmates, placing them in segregated confinement against national standards.

“From my review, these violations were based on systemic and gross deficiencies which should have been obvious to any jail administrator,” he wrote.

Hansen was especially critical of Harper.

“Warden Harper’s lack of understanding of the use-of-force policy, which includes the restraint chair, is alarming,” Hansen wrote, citing a deposition in which Harper and a training sergeant said an inmate could be placed in the restraint chair if they refused a direct order.

“This completely violates (jail) policy on the use of restraint chairs and (national) standards,” Hansen wrote.

He said the jail’s use of force was higher than any other in the state.

“This is a complete failure on the part of Warden Harper,” Hansen wrote. “Use of force is one of the most critical components of your duty to protect individuals that are incarcerated in your facility. You cannot delegate those duties to anyone else.”

Hansen wrote that he was taken aback when he first learned of the referendum banning the use of the restraint chair, shackles and chemical agents. But as he completed his review, he found that jail staff failed to use those tools appropriately.

“I do not blame the citizens of Allegheny County, I blame (jail) administration for not taking steps sooner to prevent this from happening,” he wrote.

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---