ACLU: Juvenile subject to torturous' treatment

MATT GOURAS Associated Press Writer

A 17-year-old inmate at the state prison has been in solitary confinement for almost a year and is being subjected to “torturous” treatment, the Montana ACLU said Wednesday. The boy first incarcerated at a youth facility as a 15-year-old when he pleaded guilty to assaulting correctional officers has been in the adult prison for almost two years, according to a lawsui t f i led Wednesday. The ACLU said the boy's treatment in the special confinement unit is so horrific that other inmates sent the organization letters asking if it could help the boy. Pleas for help also came from the boy's relatives. Montana State Prison officials said Wednesday they will answer the allegations in the legal system. The prison said it currently has just one inmate under 18 years old. “We need to respond through the legal system, and that's really the only thing we can do,” said Montana State Prison spokeswoman Linda Moodry. The lawsuit alleges the boy has not been able to speak to his mom in months, has been repeatedly Tasered as part of “behavior modification plans,” and has twice tried to kill himself by chewing through his wrist to a vein. “Treating a child with mental illness like this goes against all laws of human decency,” said ACLU of Montana Staff Attorney Jennifer Giuttari. The ACLU did not release the boy's name, and would not say why he was originally sent to the Pine Hills Correctional Facility for minors in Deer Lodge. The boy needs treatment for mental illness, is subject to victimization as long as he is housed with the roughest inmates in the system, and has not received any schooling since the ninth grade, the advocacy groupSaid. “Absent judicial intervention, it is predictable that the plaintiff will serve the remainder of his 5-year sentence in total isolation: without visits or phone calls and without educational, vocational or other programs,” the ACLU lawsuit said. The lawsuit said the treatment violates the boy's state and federal constitutional rights, and breaks international law banning torture of children. The ACLU said the boy has severe psychological problems from a childhood in which his stepfather and half-siblings beat him with belt buckles and baseball bats, locked him in his room for days at a time and degraded him. Proper treatment and rehabilitation could help, the group argued. “If given these remedies, there is a strong likelihood he can become a productive, nonviolent, emotionally mature adult who could lead a normal life,” the ACLU lawsuit argued. “Without these remedies, there is a strong likelihood he will develop Anti-social Personality Disorder and be imprisoned for the rest of his life.”