Webb was found to have mental illnesses as a child, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, although for many years the state listed him as needing no treatment, Turner said.
At Red Onion, he was given written questions to answer as part of a program designed to alter his thinking and behavior. After the paperwork was done, he spoke to a counselor through the door.
23 hours a day
Prisoners held in isolation spend 23 hours a day alone in an at-least-80-square-foot cell with a bed, prison officials say.
They eat alone and have no group activities. They are moved in shackles and handcuffs. Their only interactions with other people occur when prison employees slide meal trays through a shutter on the cell door or crouch down to speak through the slot.
Three times a week, they can shower. Five times a week, they are moved for recreation to a 96-square-foot cell with metal wiring.
Prison officials declined to provide The Post access to Red Onion, citing state policy. But Del. Charniele Herring (D-Alexandria) said she saw a “sense of loss’’ in inmates’s eyes when she toured the prisons.
“They are turned back into society with no benefit of transition. Are we doing anything to help them transition?’’ she said.
James Reinhard, who was mental-health commissioner under Democratic governors Timothy M. Kaine and Mark R. Warner, said those with significant and chronic illnesses have been put behind bars ever since the nation began moving away from long stays at psychiatric hospitals in the 1960s. “It’s out of sight, out of mind,’’ he said. “I don’t think society has a lot of sympathy for them.’’
Traylor said the state does not know how many inmates are released from isolation into society or the portion of the budget spent on mental health. He told Hope that 30 mental-health counselors lost their jobs in 2002 because of budget cuts but that those positions have since been restored. Six positions were cut in 2008.
The American Bar Association calls for an end to solitary confinement for the mentally ill and one-year maximum stays for other inmates. In October, a U.N. expert on torture urged all countries to limit solitary confinement to rare cases and to ban it for the mentally ill.
Lawsuits have been brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others in a half-dozen states — including Wisconsin, Connecticut and California — because of worries about isolation’s effect on the mentally ill.
Springs, who has been in and out of prison since he was 13, was initially sentenced for nine felonies, including carjacking, sodomy and abduction of two 19-year-olds in Hampton Roads in 2004. His mental-health problems — including bipolar disorder, depression and borderline personality — are related in part to childhood abuse.
He said he is frustrated that he does not receive the treatment he needs. Usually, a nurse and counselor come to his cell and ask him how he is doing — through the shutter in the door.
“I can’t have treatment because I’m in segregation,’’ he said. “All I can do is sit and think.’’
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