A bill making it tougher to keep mentally ill prison inmates in solitary confinement passed out of the state’s House of Representatives on a 63-2 vote Monday.
Senate Bill 64, which passed out of the Senate unanimously, now goes to Gov. John Hickenlooper. If he signs the bill into law, the Colorado Department of Corrections would be unable to place an offender with serious mental illness in an administrative segregation environment, except when exigent circumstances are present. The bill also creates a working group to advise the department on policies and procedures related to the proper treatment and care of offenders with serious mental illness in long-term isolated confinement.
Bill proponents said it was a tribute to former prisons director Tom Clements, who felt it was inhumane to keep mentally ill prisoners in their cells for as much as 23 hours a day.
Clements was killed by a parolee who spent several years in administrative segregation, also known as solitary confinement.
“Today’s vote moves Colorado one step closer to realizing the former director’s stated desire of bringing greater safety to the public and humanity to the prisons by ending our state’s historic over-reliance on solitary confinement,” the state’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.
