By Eric Balaban, ACLU National Prison Project

Imagine being charged with a crime, going to trial, being found not guilty by reason of insanity, but remaining behind bars for years. You are denied access to a psychiatrist to treat your serious mental illness; you grow more acutely ill; and you daily face the threat of violence at the hands of other prisoners.

It took a nurse observing a man “eating chunks [taken out of his cell wall]” before he was moved out of solitary confinement.