In 2016, an essay arrived in our offices from John J. Lennon, then incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility in New York. “The Murderer’s Mother” was a personal essay in the best sense: compelling and honest without being self-aggrandizing.11xJohn J. Lennon, “The Murderer’s Mother,” The Hedgehog Review, Summer 2016, vol. 18, no. 2, (Summer 2016): 106–110; https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/meritocracy-and-its-discontents/articles/the-murderers-mother. John did not rationalize taking the life of a fellow drug dealer on a street in Brooklyn. Nor did he sidestep the psychological toll that his incarceration has taken on his aging mother. After his essay appeared, John and I began corresponding and soon became editorial colleagues and friends. In the summer of 2019, I traveled to Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York, where I spent the day with John and his family, celebrating his graduation from Mercy College with a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science. John has gone on to become an award-winning journalist writing from prison. This year, his New York Review of Books essay “Peddling Darkness” was a National Magazine Award finalist in reviews and criticism. He is also in the final stages of preparing his book, The Tragedy of True Crime, which will be published by Celadon Books in the fall of 2025. John agreed to talk with me from Sullivan Correctional on how American prisons fail inmates, as well as some ways in which they are improving.22xWhile this interview was in progress, news arrived that New York governor, Kathy Hochul, would close Sullivan Correctional Facility and Great Meadow Correctional Facility by the end of 2024. This closure means that John and hundreds of other inmates will be relocated to other facilities, disrupting routines, workshops and classes, therapy sessions, and innumerable other elements of delicately balanced daily life behind bars. Many of the inmates at Sullivan are mentally ill, disabled, on medication for various conditions; this move will be worse for them in many ways, as will the challenges of resettling in another facility. Of course, the closings also mean relocation, and possible job loss, for hundreds of staff, administrators, and corrections officers.
Warehousing the Mentally Ill
Leann Davis Alspaugh: In 2018, you wrote about serving with Andrew Goldstein in his last days in prison. Goldstein spent nineteen years in prison for the crime of pushing a young woman, Kendra Webdale, into the path of an oncoming subway train in 1999. In your wrenching 2018 New York Magazine essay, “A Turbulent Mind” (written with Bill Keller), you described Goldstein’s daily life, one dominated by a regimen of antipsychotic drugs that kept him nonviolent and compliant but also left him with a host of illnesses brought on by a lack of hygiene and a poor diet. As you wrote: “One reason so many of the desperately ill are in prisons is that prosecutors exercise their immense discretion in pursuit of victories, not treatment. If prosecutors had agreed to accept a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, Andrew would have been sent to a psychiatric facility instead of Sullivan, but prosecutors wanted a conviction. In any case, Andrew faced a Hobson’s choice—prison with a chance of freedom, or a more appropriate setting possibly for the rest of his life.” Psychoses are a feature of daily life in prison—some diagnosable, some behavioral. What do correctional officers face when it comes to handling mental illness within the prison population?
John J. Lennon: That ten of every eleven psychiatric patients housed by the government are incarcerated should jar everyone.33xJohn J. Lennon, “‘This Place Is Crazy,’” Esquire, June 5, 2018; https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a20717313/mental-illness-treatment-in-prison/. In 2022, I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times explaining how President Biden could use what I called a “hope and healing bill” to fix some of the damage caused by his 1994 crime bill. My proposal called for “more federal funding so that prisoners with mental health problems would be treated more humanely. It would also provide more vacation days for corrections officers and offer them resources to treat PTSD. They have a hard job, and it’s harder for them to treat us well if they are unwell themselves.”44xJohn J. Lennon, “I’ve Been Incarcerated for 21 Years. I Wish the Judge Could See Who I Am Today,” New York Times, May 5, 2022; https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/opinion/prison-reform-biden-pell-grant.html. While I was preparing that op-ed, I read a white paper published by an officer-wellness organization detailing the physical and psychological trauma endured by COs (correctional officers). Physical assault also has serious consequences outside prison, as this paper noted: “The violence in prisons haunts guards’ private lives. They begin to treat their family and friends like they treat convicts, lose their trust in people, and feel threatened on a daily basis. This behavior often leads to domestic violence, drug abuse, and feelings of guilt.”55x“I Am Not Okay,” white paper, One Voice Uniting Corrections, October 24, 2021; https://onevoiceunited.org/blog/i-am-not-okay-wellness-white-paper/. Quoted on page 17.
I’m not sure I’ve seen treatment improve in here. People who suffer from mental illness are generally ignored in prison until they become psychotic, and then they are isolated and sedated, and, sadly, sometimes beaten. It’s pretty much the same thing in society. People in New York City ignore the man ranting on the subway every day, until he becomes aggressive, and then the cops come take him away.