ALAN GUSTAFSON
Statesman Journal
July 8, 2007
Aaron Munoz seethed with anger, masking the shame that engulfed him after he was sexually abused by his juvenile parole officer.
Stanley Reger stood 6-foot-8 and weighed 250 pounds, but he cowered behind prison bars when paranoid schizophrenia filled his mind with imaginary enemies.
Jeremy Ayala was haunted by memories of his pregnant girlfriend's death. He told family members that he was going crazy.
All three men took the same drastic step to end their misery -- suicide by hanging. They became part of a troubling chain of suicides during the past decade in Oregon's prison system.
Since August 1998, 25 inmates have killed themselves. In 2001-02, a two-year period studied by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Oregon's prison suicide rate was nearly double the national average.
A Statesman Journal review of the 25 deaths found common links:
Hanging was by far the most common method of suicide; 22 inmates hanged themselves. Most used bed sheets attached to cell bars, metal grates, vents and other fixtures.
Male inmates accounted for 23 suicides.
Fifteen had known psychiatric problems, ranging from chronic mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
At least 14 killed themselves in the Disciplinary Segregation Unit or the Intensive Management Unit where inmates are confined to their cells for at least 23 hours per day.
Family members of inmates, attorneys and other inmate advocates say the death toll illustrates why prisoners with mental-health problems shouldn't be placed in extreme isolation for violating prison rules.
"Prisons respond to disciplinary issues by segregating people. If a person has a psychotic disorder, that may be the worst thing to do with him," said Robert Joondeph, the executive director of the Oregon Advocacy Center, which has represented inmates in civil rights lawsuits.
Frank Colistro, a Portland psychologist who has worked in Oregon's prison system for 28 years as a private consultant and contractor, said it's no mystery why the majority of prison suicides here and across the country occur in disciplinary segregation units.
"Segregation is to prison kind of what jail is to your community, so you're going to expect more psychopathology,
The number of suicides hasn't gone unnoticed by the Oregon Department of Corrections.
As early as 1999, prison officials sought expert advice for curbing suicides.
At that time, the DOC contracted with Lindsay Hayes, a nationally recognized suicide expert, to review five suicides clustered within a six-month period. Four of the five suicides happened in disciplinary segregation cells.
In May 1999, Hayes issued a package of recommendations, including increased suicide-prevention training for prison staff members and enhanced screening measures to identify inmates for suicide risks. He also advised against placing suicidal inmates in isolation cells.
"The use of isolation not only escalates the inmate's sense of alienation, but also further serves to remove the individual from proper staff supervision,
Oregon's prison system has taken many steps recommended by Hayes in 1999 and in a more recent report, officials said.
"We're doing an increased amount of training," said Jana Russell, the prison system's new administrator of Counseling and Treatment Services. "We're really in a much better position to work together to solve this problem. It's not one of those things that is hidden anymore."
Russell formerly was in charge of mental health programs at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, which has not experienced a suicide since it opened in April 2002.
She recently replaced Arthur Tolan as head of mental health services for the entire 13,500-inmate prison system. Tolan became clinical director at the Oregon State Hospital.
Russell said her experience with prison officials and staffers who have dealt with suicides tells her that they don't take it lightly.
"It's the phone call nobody ever wants to get. I'm talking about staff, as well as the (inmate's) family," she said. "We hurt when that happens, and you start to do all the second guessing about what could have been done differently to prevent it. It's downright painful. I always think, 'What if it was my child?'"
Anguished letter to family
Jeremy Ayala wrote an anguished note to family members before he killed himself in May, becoming the 25th suicide victim since August
1998.
"Every day is hell for me," he wrote from the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem. "I just want it to stop."
His letter arrived at his parents' Salem home on May 9. Mary Ayala felt a wave of fear as she read her son's scrawled note.
The letter made her nervous, she said, because he had tried to kill himself in the state penitentiary'
Hoping to alert prison officials to her concerns about the letter, Mary Ayala made several calls to OSCI.
However, she quickly became frustrated when her calls hit voice-mail messages. She hung up, not knowing that pressing "0" would have summoned a real person at the prison. She told herself that she would try again the next day.
It couldn't wait. Late that night, Jeremy Ayala tied a bed sheet to the bars of his cell, twisted it around his neck and hanged himself.
A pre-dawn phone call from a prison chaplain awakened the Ayalas to the saddest day of their lives: Their son had been transported to Salem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 12:41 a.m. May 10.
Since her son's funeral, Mary Ayala has wrestled with conflicted feelings of anger, sorrow and guilt.
"Who do I blame?" she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "A little of everybody. Me for not getting hold of anyone at the prison. Him for doing it. And them for not keeping an eye on him."
Oregon State Police are conducting an investigation into Ayala's death, a standard procedure after a prisoner suicide. The inquiry has not been completed, officials said.
Previous suicide attempt
Ayala was a repeat offender who told his mother that he wanted to turn around his life. He planned to enroll at Chemeketa Community College in Salem and become a drug and alcohol counselor or a gang counselor, she said.
Drugs, crime and tragedy demolished his good intentions.
In July 2006, his pregnant girlfriend, Haley Fitch, 28, died from a drug overdose in Hood River.
"She OD'd and died in his arms," Mary Ayala said.
In August, Ayala returned to prison to serve a 15-month sentence for being a felon in possession of a weapon. His mother said the gun charge stemmed from her son's anger over Fitch's fatal overdose and his desire to exact revenge on the alleged drug dealer. Ultimately, he didn't use a gun, but he was sent back to prison for having it.
Memories of his girlfriend's death brought nightmares and bouts of deep depression for her son, Mary Ayala said.
Anti-depression medication failed to ease his torment: "It made it worse. He kept saying his medication was making him crazy," she said.
Prison officials would not discuss Ayala's mental health history or treatment, citing confidentiality. Prison reports confirmed that Ayala tried to kill himself in October.
At that time, he was housed in the IMU, the penitentiary'
After midnight on Oct. 14, reports say, Ayala draped a sheet across the front of his single cell and disobeyed officer orders to take it down.
Two officers made a cell check shortly before 1 a.m. They found Ayala slumped on the floor and unconscious. A sheet was wrapped around his neck. Several empty aspirin packages were found on the floor. Officers estimated that Ayala had swallowed 50 to 60 tablets.
Ayala was carried out of his cell and placed on his side "in a recovery position." Medical personnel arrived about 1 a.m. Ayala was transported to Salem Hospital for treatment and observation.
'Time to go'
In the wake of his attempted suicide, Ayala was admitted to the Special Management Unit, a 40-bed psychiatric unit within the 2,300-inmate penitentiary.
His admitting form indicates that he was placed on a suicide watch.
Ayala stayed in SMU for five months. In mid-March, he was transferred into the general population at OSCI, a medium-security prison in southeast Salem that doesn't have a psychiatric unit.
During his last two months of tumult, Ayala bounced back to the penitentiary'
"He kept hearing voices," Mary Ayala said. "He imagined that people were yelling at him. He said he was going crazy."
On May 2, Ayala wound up in disciplinary segregation -- inmates call it the hole or the bucket -- for breaking two rules: possessing contraband (radio earbuds) and assaulting a fellow inmate.
A prison hearings officer sentenced Ayala to 84 days in segregation for the assault and seven days for the contraband violation.
Confined to his disciplinary cell for 23 hours a day, Ayala drew staff attention by cutting himself, records show.
"I asked Inmate Ayala if he could give me his word that he would not try to harm himself again," a corrections sergeant wrote. "Inmate Ayala said: 'You got my word, I'm all done with that.'"
At some point, Ayala scrawled his final letter to family members:
"I don't know what to do anymore. I can't fight this s--- no more. Every day is hell for me. I just want it to stop. ... I go out of my way to stay out of trouble and look what happens. ... I'm tired of being a f---up. And it's time for me to go."
Suicide linked to abuse
Shortly before 9 p.m. Jan. 28, 2005, Aaron Munoz hanged himself with a bed sheet attached to a vent in the back corner of his segregation cell in the penitentiary'
The 21-year-old inmate was about a week away from his prison release date.
Kelly Ann Mills of Portland, who raised Munoz from infancy, said her nephew killed himself because he was embarrassed about being sexually abused by Michael Boyles, his juvenile parole and probation officer, and because he dreaded being labeled as a snitch for testifying against him.
"One of the things he said to me is, I don't want to be known as a snitch, and I don't want to be known as a homosexual," Mills said. "In his circle, in his group, you didn't rat somebody out."
Boyles was arrested in February 2004 and charged with numerous counts of sodomy, abuse and misconduct against five boys he supervised in the 1990s.
Munoz reportedly met Boyles when he was 13 and accused of shoplifting and breaking into a state-owned car. Eventually, he was placed under Boyles' supervision for four years until 2001, when he was sent to prison for third-degree assault.
Angry and defiant, Munoz landed in the penitentiary'
The Intensive Management Unit operates as a rigidly controlled mini-prison within the prison. High-risk prisoners are confined for more than 23 hours a day in electronically controlled cells.
When an inmate leaves his cell, usually to shower or exercise, he is handcuffed, tethered with a leash and escorted by two officers.
Mills said she thinks that keeping Munoz in extreme isolation amounted to state-sponsored abuse.
"In that kind of environment, you have no real communication with anybody," she said, "and it just gave him too much time to think. Here's this kid that pretty much got the raw end of the deal and took what he figured was his only way out."
Mills visited Munoz on the day he killed himself. She said he was in a foul mood, despite his looming release date.
"I had never seen him that angry," she said. "There really was no talking to him."
After Munoz killed himself, prosecutors dropped about 20 charges against Boyles, all connected to his alleged sexual abuse of Munoz. Prosecution of the parole officer continued, however.
In October 2005, nine months after Munoz committed suicide, Boyles was sentenced to 80 years in prison for sexually abusing four other teenage boys he supervised in the 1990s.
Wrongful death lawsuit
Oregon State Police denied the newspaper's request to release the agency's investigative report on Munoz's suicide, citing pending litigation.
A wrongful death lawsuit was brought against the state this year in connection with Munoz's suicide.
The lawsuit, filed in Marion County Circuit Court on behalf of Munoz's relatives, alleged that the penitentiary failed to provide him with adequate supervision and mental health care.
Prison officials "knew or should have known that depression can lead to suicide and that Munoz was depressed," according to the suit.
"Defendant State of Oregon also knew or should have known that Munoz had post- traumatic stress disorder as a result of his sexual abuse as a minor by a State of Oregon juvenile parole and probation officer," the suit said, "and that Munoz had, at the time of his suicide, been participating in the investigation and prosecution of his abuser which caused Munoz significant anxiety."
The suit also claimed that prison officers and managers failed to conduct sufficient checks of his cell, failed to meet staffing requirements for the Intensive Management Unit and permitted staff to "work for such extended periods of time that their effectiveness was compromised.
Mediation aimed at settling the suit is nearing conclusion, officials in the state Department of Justice said. They said no details would be made public until the case is resolved.
Prisons bulge with mentally ill
Roughly 40 percent of Oregon's 13,500 prison inmates need mental-health care, but many don't receive services, according to corrections department reports.
Most worrisome are the 11 percent known to suffer from severe and persistent mental illnesses, such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
That's nearly 1,500 inmates -- twice the number of patients housed at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, the state's largest psychiatric facility.
Reasons given for influxes of mentally ill prisoners range from surging numbers of methamphetamine-
Corrections officers and prison managers face clashing demands of tight security and treatment as they try to keep the peace in a packed prison system.
While critics say prison mental-health care is deficient, others describe it as more than adequate.
"If you want to compare it to mental health care in the community, it's way better in prison because many people in the community don't have any care other than using the ER," Colistro said.
DOC reports point to numerous shortcomings in prison mental health care. Among the problems cited by a 2004 task force appointed by Corrections Director Max Williams:
Mental-health care wasn't being provided to more than 2,000 inmates identified as being in need of such care.
With 72 psychiatric beds in the entire prison system, Oregon ranked 49th in the nation for the number of such beds.
Forty percent of all inmates in disciplinary segregation cells were mentally ill, and they were being supervised by staff members who had no mental-health training.
Mentally ill inmates frequently were moved without regard for their treatment.
Prison officials said gaps in mental-health services are being plugged with upgrades.
For example, the 2007 Legislature, which recently approved spending a record $1.3 billion on the prison system over the next two years, allocated funding to add 25 to 30 more psychiatric beds.
That infusion will raise to about 110 the total number of prison beds available for psychiatric crises, far below the 360 called for by the 2004 task force.
Suicide chain unfolds
Nearly a decade after her son Stanley Reger hanged himself at the penitentiary in Salem, Joan Nemchick of Stayton was surprised to hear about 24 ensuing suicides.
After a moment of reflection, she changed her mind.
"So many of them have mental illness, and that gets to them when they don't have any way to cope," she said. "So I guess maybe I'm not surprised."
When Reger skipped his psychiatric medication, symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia filled his brain with terrorizing delusions. He perceived enemies bent on his destruction.
On Aug. 30, 1998, the huge inmate hanged himself with a bed sheet in his general population cell at the state penitentiary. He was 50 years old.
For Reger, the penitentiary'
His suicide came less than two weeks after he graduated from a six-month program designed to help mentally ill inmates live in the general prison population.
"He came back, and he was afraid to go to the pill line, so of course, he wasn't taking his medication and he decompensated very quickly," Nemchick said.
After her son died, Nemchick received a letter he had mailed from the penitentiary. Reger described being terrified in his general population cell, on the penitentiary'
"I'm still pretty scared, and they are still yelling at me the word, 'RAT,' and threatening to kill me -- so I'm not dead yet," he wrote.
He hanged himself the day after he wrote the letter.
agustafs@StatesmanJ
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