NCCHC Extends Comment Deadline for Prison Health Standards until Sept. 30, 2001

Public Comment Period for Prison Health Standards Extended Until September 30, 2001

NEWS RELEASE -- August 30, 2001

THE "PUBLIC COMMENT" PERIOD ABOUT "PRISON HEALTH" STANDARDS -- INCLUDING "MENTAL HEALTH" -- HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2001

YOU CAN E-MAIL IN YOUR COMMENTS TO THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON CORRECTIONAL HEALTH CARE FOR THE USA

Yesterday, Support Coalition International asked the National Commission on Correctional Health Care Standards for the USA to extend the opportunity for public input regarding their proposed draft of health standards, including "mental health," for people in jails and prisons, Support Coalition International argued that psychiatric survivors and their organizations had not had adequate opportunity to read and comment on the standards, particularly those relating to "mental health," and forced psychiatric drugging.

Today, NCCHC has extended the deadline to Sunday, September 30, 2001. While it is highly doubtful the prison industry will change overnight, especially via a prison industry organization, at least by commenting they can *never* truthfully deny having ever heard from us. Also, the psychiatric survivors liberation movement has traditionally been part of the prison justice movement; it's time to re-unite our issues and actions.

For member follow-up discussion, go to the member e-mail list: sci-psych.

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ACTION:

If *you* would like to comment, here's how:

You can review the proposed standards here: http://208.209.200.23/new/jails.html. Note there are two standards, one for prisons, the other for jails. Especially relevant sections on "mental health" include: Prison: P35, P52, P53, P69, P72, P73. Jail: J35, J51, J52, J68, J71, J72. The standards are *only* available as a PDF document. In theory, your clicking around will eventually open the Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0, which they said is included with the comments to read the PDF file.
Use their web form for comments, or e-mail your comments, to: <ncchc@ncchc.org> by Sept. 30, 2001. You are encouraged to copy your comments by "BCC" to oaks@mindfreedom.org. BELOW is a revised e-mail sent out by me yesterday to Support Coalition members, on the SCI-PSYCH list. If you'd like you can use this for ideas about what to comment on, but please use your language.

Thanks.

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ATTENTION

Support Coalition members and Prison Activist Resource Center:

Would you like to provide input to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care for the USA about "draft proposals" they have about health, including "mental health"?

You can do this by e-mail. If *you* would like to comment, you now have until Sunday, September 30, 2001.

The prison justice movement tends to be UNAWARE that the prison population is being targeted by the international psychopharmaceutical industry.

I will copy these comments to an SCI sponsor group, PRISON ACTIVIST RESOURCE CENTER, and ELI ROSENBLATT, our liaison to the group. PARC fights of human rights of prisoners. The PARC web site is: http://www.prisonactivist.org

You can do so by e-mail. If you read the below, you will see the web site where the rough draft is located. Note there are two similar documents -- one on prison, the other on jail. You can e-mail in your comments, to the e-mail address I use below: <ncchc@ncchc.org>.

Please "BCC" your comments to me at: oaks@mindfreedom.org.

(Unfortunately, the NCCHC web site only makes the rough draft proposal available as a PDF document, not a digital text document. We've asked some members on the sci-volunteer list if they'd like to extract some of the relevant "mental health" material. By the way, if you ever want to join that sci-volunteer e-mail list just ask!).

Feel free to forward this to individuals and groups you feel might also make comments. Because of time, I was only able to make five comments below, and I'm sure others will be able to cover areas I was unable to get to.

David Oaks,
Director/Support Coalition International
email: oaks@mindfreedom.org
web: http://www.MindFreedom.org
ph: (541) 345-9106
fax: (541) 345-3737

Click here to see David's letter to the NCCHC.

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