A report released by Disability Rights Oregon (DRO) last March made it abundantly clear: The Multnomah County Detention Center, the downtown jail operated by the sheriff’s office, is a dreadful place for people with severe mental illness.
The limited staff is not well trained, and jail facilities and policies are harmful, the report found. It detailed incidents involving mentally ill inmates that would seem at home at Guantanamo Bay.
“Medical and mental healthcare in jail is woefully inadequate and so the jail relies on correctional tools: rampant use of solitary confinement, punitive use of restraints and suicide watch, and routinized force against people with mental illness,” says the DRO report, which was written by attorney Sarah Radcliffe.
Last Thursday, more than eight months after the highly critical audit, Sheriff Mike Reese and other officials said fixes are in progress. Those with mental illness make up a significant portion of the jail population—estimates range from 30 to 80 percent—and in a hearing before the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, Reese and his colleagues argued that the system is now less disastrous for this particularly vulnerable population.