Andre Thomas: Struggling to Maintain Sanity In Prison
This is Part Five in a six-part series exploring the intersections of the mental health and criminal justice systems in Texas. It examines the case of Andre Thomas, a death row inmate who began exhibiting signs of mental illness as a boy and committed a brutal triple murder in 2004. Blind because he pulled out both of his eyes while behind bars, Thomas awaits a federal court's decision on whether he is sane enough to be executed.
RICHMOND — When a skinny, shaking and psychotic Andre Thomas arrived at a Texas Department of Criminal Justice psychiatric facility in December 2008 ...
Comments (8)
Ben Bius via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This guy looks like the kid w ho murdered my son. Let's focus on the ones roaming our streets.
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Perry and his minions could care less about spending on mental health vs giving tax breaks to his cronies.
Meme Me
I have also read that Tuberculosis is spreading in the prisons because of the lack of medical care.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Bambi, if you want more money to go to mental health that is fine. There is nothing stopping you from opening YOUR wallet and giving more.
Phillip Baker
Dr. Penn's remarks say it all- prisoners have the same problems as on the outside, he's seen no connection between prolonged solitary confinement and mental issues, and inmates feign mental illness to get into units with AC. In short, TDCJ continues to turn a blind eye to mental illness in the system. None of that is true, and if Dr. Penn actually looked into this he might know that. Get out of your Huntsville office, doctor.
What I know is that upon entering TDCJ most inmates are taken off their psych meds (for costs reasons, I suspect). Counseling is sparse at best. Most treatment programs- weak at their best- have been ended to save money. The security staff is woefully untrained in security matters, let alone mental health. When very predictable misbehavior occurs later, there is punishment, even new charges, but little effort to actually treat these people.
There is all this talk these days about addressing the many flaws in mental health care in this country.We admit that our custom has been to warehouse these people in prisons. Perhaps even the Matthew Cowans among us can grasp the vastly higher costs of this approach compared with treatment and prevention. So, they don't want to "open their wallets" to pay for mental health care on the streets or in the prisons, don't want these people living next to them, refuse to raise the money needed to address this problem. But you can't have it both ways. Prison costs will continue to soar, the costly social problems associated with untreated mental illness will continue to eat away at out budgets, and in the end these people WILL be living back among us. Still mentally ill, now also bitter, angry men. So we can continue our failed- and stupid- policies and pay those bills, or try something different. It's sad that the Cowans among us have so little understanding and compassion for the less fortunate people with mental illness- by no fault of the own- but maybe the cost in tax dollars will get through to them. That is, after all, a typically Texan approach- do nothing until it costs lots of money by court order and lost suits, then begrudgingly string out just enough money to give the illusion of action, yet never enough to actually do the job. And we all continue to face the consequences of that failure. Thanks to the Cowans of this world.
Cris Sleightholm
I seriously doubt that many of the state/government paid counselors/psychologists/psychiatrists are even remotely qualified or give a damn about their patients...it is an easy paycheck. It is a crappy job. Who cares. I have known two government paid psychologists and both were morons. The state/government has a history of hiring totally unqualified personnel who take these jobs because no one else in the private sector will hire them. I feel sorry for the inmates. I feel sorry for those who are prisoners inside their minds who receive inadequate care and medicine. It is a pathetic travesty. Give them the quality care they deserve. I can't fathom gouging out my own eyeball and eating it.
richard jung
This article seems to make the case that sentences once handed down should be carried out more rapidly
yosel flomen
"to let patients go and hope that the police would catch them before something bad happened"
I work in the mental health field. We encountered this problem repeatedly.
The problem with that idea, is that even if the police "catch him", they can't hold him because at that point in time, he still has not committed a crime. Leaving an ER against medical advice,is not a crime.