Prison Talk By Dr. Silberstein

Speaker: Dr. Adam Silberstein, clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, CA; former clinical psychologist for the prison system in the State of California Where did you work and what was it like? Work experience: started training as a clinical physiologist. Mostly with extremely mentally ill people. Learned what crazy looks like, sees bipolar and schizophrenia. Now he was able to see what it looked like to not be right in the head. He knew what the worst looked like. Then he worked with young people, kids living in residential treatment centers (where young kids go when they cannot function) for the hardest cases of such kids, were very aggressive. DRUGS AND ALCOHOL USUALLY PLAYED MAJOR ROLES IN THESE CASES. Girls had eating disorders and boys were very involved in gangs. These kids grow up to be broken adults. Then he began working in prisons. Large prison representations by minorities…worked in male prisons. His job was to help them cope not to rehabilitate them. He was not to teach them to be able to function after prison. Some people in prison thought they were cool that they were in prison, especially gang members. People with disabilities must be taken care of by law. The prisoners argued that they were unwell and not only were they not being helped, but they were being hurt, badly treated. So then the federal government ruled that any mentally ill people had to receive treatment in prison. Now every single prisoner must be evaluated for mental illness and treated. Were mental illnesses the cause of why they were in prison? Just because someone is mentally ill it doesn’t mean that they should commit crimes, but it DOES happen. Sometimes mental illness has nothing to do with their trial-they knew right from wrong. Prison is extremely crowded in California. There are bunk beds. Levels of prison, 1,2, 3,4. If you commit crime IN prison you are put in lockdown 24 hours a day everyday. Also put there sometimes if you are in jeopardy, protective custody. Level 1 looks nice, they have kind of bungalows. In level 4 maximum security, people are shackled, there are tons of guards, riots… He was stuck in a riot seeing people fighting. Gangs own certain yards. Dominant gangs fight for power over yards. This means they are in charge of drug sales in the yards. Visitors bring in drugs, or corrupt guards. It’s a big business and the gang in charge of the yard is in charge. The other gang tried to overpower and fought. He was there

but he has no impact so they didn’t hurt them but he waited for them to be done and left. Perk about being mentally ill: Can get out of a gang involvement Drugs and alcohol are major major major factors. 99% of the time its part of the story. Poverty and under education also contributed. Very rarely were these people from yeshiva. What drew you to this job? This was the big league of clinical psychology. It’s not boring, It’s interesting work. People on parole: There are literacy programs, laser surgery to remove tattoos, shelter, drug and alcohol treatment. 70-80% come back to prison.