June 13, 2020
Dear editor;
The mentally ill are being sentenced to prison for breaking the law. Usually for random crimes with no real motive. I know, because I am in prison with them. My name is Matthew Redmon I.D.O.C. #y36093.
So, the what of what has happened is not the issue here.
No, the issue here is the why of these mentally-ill American citizens being in prison at all.
These unfortunate individuals have an illness, just like a cancer or diabetes, a disabling disease. One that came to them genetically, or as the result of some childhood trauma. And there most certainly was some childhood trauma. Children are quite vicious to anyone different.
What disease could be more horrible than to have your own brain turn against you? It causes you to have thoughts and take actions in life that are completely against your character and your nature.
Most often, it is a life of hearing voices. I’m not talking about the voices we all hear in our own heads. The ones in that interior monologue that help us to figure out our problems, or to write a song, or a speech, or to help us find our car keys!
No, I’m talking about voices that are intrusive. Voices that are direct. Voices that are overwhelming. Voices that are whispering, always whispering. It tells these unfortunate individuals to think and to do things they would never normally do.
The truth is that these are good people with an affliction, an affliction of a terrible mind-altering disease.
You haven’t even begun to grasp the whole horrible story yet.
Because most states including, Illinois, very seldom recognize the defense of “not guilty by reason of insanity”, these disabled American citizens are sentenced to prison.
Instead of receiving sentences to mental health facilities for breaking some law which they may not even comprehend, these unfortunate American citizens are being sentenced to an even greater hell than the ones in which they already live in every day.
Into a system wholly undesigned to care for them. Totally undesigned to help them. Sentenced into the prisons of America, where they are tortured and preyed upon by the mentally adept.
All for the want of a not guilty by reason of insanity plea, theirs is now a life that brings the true meaning of a living hell to life.
A whole new level of Dante’s Inferno.
Really?
Here in America?
Thank you,
Matthew Redmon #y36093, Jacksonville Correctional