Because of much computer interference, I am posting my letter to my congressman, Hank Johnson, here in my Care2 Sharebook.  That way, I can hope that he actually receives it, unlike much of the mail that I post to my YahooGroups and others.  We experience much censorship in the ongoing quest for justice for America's mentally ill citizens and seeking justice for my brother, Larry, Neal, a mentally ill heart patient who was secretly arrested in mid-July until his death in Memphis/Shelby County Jail on Aug. 1, 2003, while the jail constantly denied having this sick man who needed heart drugs for survival.  Larry's death was then followed by an apparent fraud and conspiracy of cover-up by many higher-ups in the U.S. government, The Johnnie Cochran Firm, a court, and mainstream media. 

The secrecy has now evolved into a determination to harass Larry's family and likely to do bodily harm in order that we desist from this quest for open disclosure of records regarding his arrest and death and a public airing of how acute mental patients are treated in the U.S.A. But we will not.

See http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/

*********************
November 22, 2008

Hello Congressman Johnson and Staff:

Congratulations on your appointment as regional whip for the 111th Congress.  Most Americans are looking forward to the new administration with confidence that one of the main changes in Washington will be a return to at least a semblance of equal justice for all citizens.  This has been sorely missing for some time.

No case exemplifies the failure of our current administration to address equal justice issues as well as the ongoing denial of investigation by the USDOJ to bring accountability regarding the secret arrest and wrongful death of my mentally ill brother, Larry Neal, in Memphis/Shelby County Jail.   Sometimes I feel as though I have left 21st Century America and stepped behind the Iron Curtain in the 1940's, when mental patients were loaded by their government on trains and taken for extermination.  The families of the unfortunate handicapped people in pre-WWII Germany could have met with no less support from their neighbors and authorities than the Neals have met in our quest for "public" records and justice for Larry. 

Of course, with the conviction of Vice President Cheney and former Attorney General Gonzales as private prison profiteers, the nation understands better why America has imprisoned 1 in every 134 citizens, two-thirds of whom are incarcerated for non-violent offenses. It is also clearer why 1 in every 31 citizens is either an inmate, a parolee, or on probation (either in jail or under the threat of jail). 

Private prison profiteering also explains why half the prisoners in the USA are mentally ill, like my brother was.  Most of these dysfunctional citizens should be in hospitals or receiving treatment as outpatients, depending on their offenses.  While not enough money is allocated for their treatment, no expense is spared to criminalize psychiatric patients when they violate laws they may not even understand due to mental dysfunctions. Treatment is withheld in order to deliver them into the hands of prisons so that private prison profiteers can milk taxpayers for exorbitant amounts of money and keep disabled citizens in often inhumane circumstances, such as solitary confinement, gassing them, tasering them, and using often deadly restraint chairs for control (punishment) during psychotic episodes. 

Up to $230,000 per year, per sick patient has been ordered for California’s taxpayers to pay to warehouse its most vulnerable citizens in prison, although in most cases, a $40 prescription for the patient under mandatory treatment provisions would have avoided that exorbitant expense and prevented whatever crime the patient committed to be criminalized in the first place. Sometimes the patients present a grave danger to society or to themselves while untreated, although it is more often the vulnerable mental patients themselves who are endangered by lack of treatment as they face homelessness, prison, or death by police during failed arrest attempts.  

It does not have to be this way. I was informed by a member of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill that her paranoid schizophrenic mother received a once-a-month shot that she was tricked by her doctor and family into believing was an allergy shot.  The AIMI member said that shot kept her mother lucid and out of jail.  This nation needs to come to its senses about mental illness and start treating, not punishing, folks for being sick.  Congress should enact laws to save taxpayer money and behave more humanely toward this very common and highly treatable health problem that one in every five Americans have to some degree – mental illness.  Deliver the mentally ill from being kept in dungeons like the 1400’s, eliminate overcrowding in prisons, save billions of dollars every year, and eliminate the need the public prisons now have to use private prison profiteers’ facilities to warehouse citizens for mental illness and petty crimes.

In addition to profiting off American taxpayers by charging between $40,000 for prisoners in the general inmate population and in the excess of $200,000 for sick prisoners, private prison profiteers also use prison labor to further enrich themselves by forcing prisoners to manufacture goods that are sold in interstate commerce.   Most of those being criminalized are black or brown and poor.  America has effectively returned to slavery through its unjust justice system.  Hopefully, that issue will be addressed in the 111^th Congress, and early, before the private prison profiteers can lobby the notion of freedom and justice for all right out of our newly elected representatives. 

Please let me know what legislation is currently before Congress that we who are concerned about these unjust circumstances can support.  Many Americans would like to see legislation passed to eliminate mandatory sentencing, reduce the number of citizens being incarcerated for non-violent crimes, and divert mental patients from prisons and into enforced community care or hospitals.   American taxpayers certainly need a break from paying out of the nose for problems that should be addressed more humanely while saving billions of taxpayers' dollars annually.  Our present prison budget is approximately $185 billion, and about half of that is unnecessary expenditures that go against the public interest.

Below are links to articles I hope you find time to read and will share with your fellows in Washington.  Additionally, here is a link to Treatment Advocacy Center, a mental health advocacy agency with a national presence that has the right idea about addressing severe and chronic cases of mental illness, and the organization my family founded, Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill, whose main Internet home is at Care2.com.  I invite you and other representatives to view our posts and consider the issues presented there for public view.

Treatment Advocacy Center:  www.TreatmentAdvocacyCenter.org

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill:  http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

I do not write to you as a psychiatrist or a psychologist, Congressman Johnson, but as a family member who had a mentally disturbed relative who was criminalized and likely euthanized in jail.  Many more constituents across America have similar challenges with mentally dysfunctional loved ones, and we look for this new administration in Washington to immediately stop our elected officials’ mercenary and illegal affiliations with private prison owners and represent the people.

Indicted: VP Cheney and former Attorney General Gonzales - Private Prison Profiteers

http://my.nowpublic.com/health/indicted-vp-cheney-and-former-attorney-general-gonzales-private-prison-profiteers

Schizophrenic Oregon Man Murders His Sister

http://my.nowpublic.com/health/oregon-man-murders-his-sister

Private Prison Torture of Mentally Ill American - Nine Months Solitary Confinement in Filth and Naked – No Exercise, No Doctors, and No Baths

http://my.nowpublic.com/health/prison-torture-mentally-ill-american-nine-months-solitary-confinement-filth-and-naked 

Is America's Prison System Legalized Slavery? http://my.nowpublic.com/health/americas-prison-system-legalized-slavery

I assume there is something you may be able to do about the denial of a judicious investigation into the secret arrest and wrongful death of my brother, a mentally ill heart patient in Memphis/Shelby County Jail on August 1, 2003, after the jail falsely and repeatedly denied to his social worker and family that he was incarcerated.  This is an outrage and an affront to everything America represents, as we supposedly wage wars to protect the human rights of people in other nations. 

Address my denial of Emergency 911 services by DeKalb County, Georgia when I was cornered in a neighborhood Chevron station by four vehicles and a US DOT truck recently.  Address all of this censorship and monitoring of my computer usage that is ongoing and curtails my freedom of speech.  Address the death threat I received by way of posting a morbid video about a dead woman to my videos on Y! Video.  Americans should never live under the threat of violence for using their First Amendment privilege to redress their grievances to our government.

We the people are hopeful that with the change of administration in our nations’ capital, there will be established in the USA a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, as is our right – ALL the people, not just the rich prison profiteers who can afford to lobby congress.

Again, congratulations on your return to Congress for another term and your selection for the important position of trust.

Sincerely,

 /s/

 Mary Neal

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill

http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

Website:  http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

My page http://www.care2.com/c2c/people/profile.html?pid=513396753
 
My articles:  http://my.nowpublic.com/search?fulltext=1&type=story&keys=mary+neal

.

.