Editorial: Time to focus on mentally ill at Multnomah County Detention Center

A night in the jail booking and release center

Several recent reports highlight the need for more training for deputies at the Multnomah County Detention Center and alternatives other than solitary confinement for inmates with mental illness.

When it comes to the contentious and complicated issues of criminal justice and the mentally ill, all sides agree that Oregon's prisons and jails are the worst possible place for people in need of medical help.

Still, due to a lack of therapeutic and housing options in Portland, the mentally ill make up at least 40 percent of the population of Multnomah County inmates, who most often are held in the Detention Center in downtown Portland. This growing inmate population presents a regular and complicated set of problems not only for county jails, but also for state prisons across Oregon and the nation.

And yet Multnomah County can no longer shrug off its experience as simply part of a national epidemic. As city and county leaders acknowledge systemic service gaps and nod in sympathy, a chilling real-life cuckoo's nest exists high above Southwest Second Avenue within view of two Starbucks and a popular vegan restaurant.

An alarming report covered by The Oregonian/OregonLive's Jeff Manning has shone a much-needed, public spotlight on how mentally ill inmates are treated at the facility.

The report, released this week by Disability Rights Oregon, was the third to highlight a disturbing pattern of violence and solitary confinement used to control sick inmates.

One schizophrenic inmate was so badly beaten by a deputy that jail staff wrapped his fractured face in a blanket so as not to traumatize the public when he arrived at the hospital. Another deputy tackled a mentally ill inmate, dislocating his hip and shattering the socket, yet he wasn't provided medical care for more than six hours.

Another inmate who'd attempted suicide days before being charged with trespassing spent 14 months at the center, mostly in solitary confinement. Alone for hours on end, his conditioned worsened to the point he wouldn't eat and pulled out his own tooth.

And on and on.

Dr. Wil Berry, a psychiatric fellow who worked a six-month rotation at the Detention Center assessed the situation with frightening clarity. "The product of the system as a whole is that we're torturing very sick people. I hate myself for being part of it, and then I feel I don't want to be there, and I feel guilty for leaving those patients behind. The cognitive dissonance required to work there is exhausting; it's crazy making. There are various coping strategies: you can burn out, you can detach, you can become sadistic . . ."