A Mental-Health Crisis in Alabama’s Prisons
In a 302-page opinion this week, a federal judge in Montgomery condemned the dire conditions faced by prisoners with mental illnesses.
Ten days after he testified on the state of mental-health care in Alabama’s prisons last year, Jamie Wallace killed himself. He was 24 years old.
Wallace took the stand in December 2016 in Braggs v. Dunn, a class-action lawsuit challenging the Alabama Department of Corrections’ mental-health-care system. Over the course of a seven-week trial, he and other inmates described ADOC’s troubling policies and procedures for treating their severemental illnesses.
While testifying, Wallace began to grow agitated and distressed while recounting his experiences. Eventually, federal judge Myron Thompson halted the proceeding and moved it to the library of his judicial chambers. There, in the
