Trapped: One photographer's haunting look at mentally ill inmates and the grim reality of life on lockdown inside a Kentucky prison

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Danny Castile, a 60-year-old inmate at the Kentucky State Reformatory who was convicted of murder, holds up drawings and writings he says is invaluable to the Department of Corrections and the judge who sentenced him to life

Anthony Rosario stares out of the cell he remains in for 23 hours a day. 'They are rejects of society and warehousing them in prison isn't the way to go. Most of them dont have life sentences - they will get out some day,' says psychologist Dr. Tanya Young

An inmate yells at the correctional officers through the window of his cell. 'I am going to get you like I got you the first time/' The officers get assaulted often, sometimes six to seven times a day. The officers say they walk a fine line between mental health and security

Jonathon Ponder laughs from within his cell at another inmate across the wing. The number below his name is one given to every inmate upon their entry in Kentuky's Department of Corrections

An inmate is cuffed and returned to his cell after acting out earlier that day. A spit mask is used to prevent him from spitting at the doctors and correctional officers

Correctional officers often assist mental health professionals in administering care. The officers often insist on extreme security measures to protect the care giver, like restraining an inmate in order that his medication can be given

Inmates often have to be restrained by officers before medication can be administered. In order to meet the criteria for forced medication, the inmate must be found to be a danger to himself or others

An officer holds the hand of an inmate while he cries

Bobby Slater looks out of his cell to an inmate watcher walking around during his 15-minute watch. Months after Bobby was released from the Kentucky Department of Corrections Correctional Psychiatric Treatment Unit, he hung himself in his cell

Inmates housed in the C-Wing are under watch for being unstable, wither suicidal, homicidal and/or actively psychotic. This inmate on lockdown in C wing talks to an officer who came by to check on him

Correctional officers struggle with an inmate to secure him in the chair in order to give him a shower. After 11 months of refusal, the doctors ordered a forced shower and a cleaning of his room

An inmate on max assault status and a 23-hour lock down talks to himself in his cell. The max assault status is issued to inmates who have assaulted officers or treatment staff. The inmates have been known to throw a mixture of feces and urine, spit, hit, kick, punch or cut

Keith Bouchard salutes to the building before entering. Often reverting back to his time in the military, Bouchard will salute people and objects and march in place for more than an hour

The men in CPTU are a fading memory for many. The mentally ill often get trapped in the system with nowhere else to go. Here, a man stands in the middle of his room for most of the day staring at the 4 walls surrounding him

'As soon as you walk through the doors, you hear people screaming, kicking their doors and crying,' says Matthew Estepp, an inmate at Kentucky State Reformatory and an inmate watcher in CPTU. Although CPTU is located within a reformatory, it is like walking into a different world, he says

Correctional officers clean the room of an inmate, searching for possible weapons after he cut himself with a spork earlier that morning

A man on suicide watch lays without a blanket. 'Isolation works in our favor sometimes but more often than not it works against us,' says Dr. Stephanie Roby, psychologist in CPTU