Judge: Mentally ill prisoners not provided with adequate treatment

INDIANAPOLIS — Indifferent. That is how one federal judge sees the state of Indiana's treatment of mentally ill inmates.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled the state department does not provide adequate treatment for those prisoners with a mental illness. She said Indiana is violating the prisoner's constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment.

"These conditions greatly exasperated mental illness causing for some, unfortunate person's suicide," Judge Walton said. "For others, all sorts of decompensation behaviors, self-injury, psychosis, extreme paranoia."

Mentally ill prisoners make up nearly a quarter of the Indiana inmate population.

Lawyers are supposed to meet within 45 days to discuss how to correct the problem.