Except as provided in this Section, a recipient who resides in a mental health or developmental disabilities facility shall be permitted unimpeded, private, and uncensored communication with persons of his choice by mail, telephone and visitation.
(a) The facility director shall ensure that... telephones are reasonably accessible...(b) Reasonable times and places for the use of telephones... may be established in writing by the facility director.(c) Unimpeded, private and uncensored communication by mail, telephone, and visitation may be reasonably restricted by the facility director only in order to protect the recipient or others from harm, harassment or intimidation, provided that notice of such restriction shall be given to all recipients upon admission. When communications are restricted, the facility shall advise the recipient that he has the right to require the facility to notify the affected parties of the restriction, and to notify such affected party when the restrictions are no longer in effect....
Most slaves feel the right to use the phone is one of their most important rights. Without it, the plantation occupies their entire world, which becomes a world of dehumanizing oppression. The overseers know this, and they use it mercilessly against anyone who appears to question or doubt their superiority and their absolute authority over all aspects, no matter how broad or intimate, of an involuntarily committed person's mental, emotional, social and behavioral life.
My client Mickey was in the middle of a phone call with his family yesterday on Lincoln South Unit, when "STA Rob" (full name under investigation) arbitrarily ended the call from a switchboard in "the bubble" (nurses' station) by disconnecting the phone Mickey was using. This was rude and upsetting to Mickey and his family, and probably contrary to elaborate and voluminous statutory, administrative and local rules or procedures.
Mickey walked over to the bubble and asked who had shut off the phone in the middle of his call. Upon being told that the culprit was "STA Rob," Mickey asked why, no doubt in a clear tone of protest. Rob became quite hostile in response, yelling (according to multiple witnesses), "Get the fuck away from the bubble!"
Well, Rob probably disconnected Mickey's call by mistake, and knew he had screwed up but didn't want to admit it. He's a fairly new, low-level overseer on the plantation, only 23 years old. Rob once admitted to Mickey that he smokes a lot of weed, even while he's working, during breaks (probably in his car in the parking lot). If he was high when he disconnected Mickey's phone call, the incident and the hostility which ensued could easily have been almost accidental, not intended as personal retribution.
The problem is, Mickey knows he really has to watch his back right now. His Thiem date is in the first week of January, and given any slightest excuse, somebody might try to prevent him from walking out the door at the last minute.
Thankfully, the two most important members of his "treatment" team, Kasturi Kripakaran, MD (the psychiatrist, née "Dr. Cash") and Zachary Naylor (the social worker), seem to be on Mickey's side. They just authored a court report stating that Mickey is mentally stable, not a threat to himself or others, and not in need of mental health services on an in-patient basis. By that testimony there should be absolutely no legal cause to hold Mickey on the plantation any longer than the next three weeks.
However, I hasten to add, this same court report added an arbitrary comment that Mickey is in need of outpatient mental health services. I'm not sure why Dr. Kripakaran and Social Worker Naylor thought it was their business to include such recommendation in a court report. Neither they, nor anyone else in the Illinois Department of Human Services, nor the court itself, will have any jurisdiction to require Mickey to be a psychiatric patient after his Thiem date. He may want to be a patient or find it helpful to be one, but if he wants and chooses to refuse psychiatry altogether, no one can stop him unless he commits a crime or presents a clear and convincing danger to himself or others.
It may be that mental health professionals just habitually promote psychiatry whether anyone is likely or can be required to accept "services" or not. It may also be that Dr. Cash and SW Naylor are ignorant of the law (as they are sort of entitled to be, but not entirely), or that they are just so used to slaves obeying their every whim and believing their every opinion that their arrogance in the current circumstances of the court report completely escaped them.
But I don't need to cause trouble for the Packard treatment team. The stoned-on-the-job STA Rob is a good enough target for the time being.
It's not the peculiar fault of "STA Rob." If the system were at all honest, I'd have no targets.
thanks
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