Source: Chicago Law Bulletin June 2018 Issue
In 2007, a prisoner named Ashoor Rasho filed a pro se lawsuit arguing that IDOC was violating his 8th amendment rights by failing to provide proper medical treatment. A year later, Attorney Marc R Kadish of Mayer Brown LLP agreed to be his lawyer. After years of court proceedings, it was in 2015 that US District Court for Central Illinois certified the Rasho suit as class action. This means the lawsuit covers any person in IDOC custody presently or in the future.
In May of 2016, IDOC agreed to a settlement with its prisoners. The agreement called for IDOC to spend 90 million dollars upgrading facilities and staffing levels to adequately give prisoners the mental health treatment they need. A court appointed monitor was picked to prepare annual reports detailing the progress of IDOC fulfilling its promises.
The monitor filed 2 reports, both stated that IDOC wasn’t implementing the promised up grades so the presiding judge called both parties into court for a status hearing. As a result of that hearing, District Judge Mihms ruled, “In this case the court finds there has been systemic constitutional deficiency in addressing the psychiatric and mental professional staffing shortage.” [Currently IDOC has 29 psychiatrist out of a need for at least 69] Judge Mihms also ruled that IDOC was “deliberately indifferential to IDOC prisoners mental health needs.”
- Pro se: Without a lawyer
- Deliberate indifference: A legal term used to describe the attitude of the offending party that raised the offense to an actionable constitutional violation.
*According to Chicago Law Bulletin 6-1-18
Approx. 44,000 prisoners are in IDOC custody
12,000 are considered mentally ill (over 25%)
4,800 are considered seriously mentally ill (over 10%)
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