Mentally ill people IN NEW HAMPSHIRE committed to Psychiatric facilities can be transferred to the Secure Psychiatric Unit (Inside the State Prison for Men) Concord. Even if they have never been charged with or convicted of a crime. Men and WOMEN are sent to the prison. Andrew Butler is one of these people committed to the NH State Psychiatric Hospital and then transferred to the Prison.

CONCORD – A Secure Psychiatric Unit patient at the state prison for men who hasn’t been convicted of a crime has filed a writ in federal court demanding to be transferred to an accredited specialized mental health hospital.

Patient Andrew Butler, 21, who was a well-known athlete as a Hollis High School student, argued through his attorney that he is locked up in a maximum-security prison because of mental illness even though he hasn’t committed a crime.

“He is held as a mental health patient without being in an accredited hospital, denied contact visits with his father, denied contact visits with his attorney, forced to wear prison clothing,” wrote his attorney Sandra Bloomenthal. “He is locked down 23 hours a day. He has been tasered. The treatment he has received is cruel and unusual punishment without having been convicted of a crime and with no pending criminal process.”

Butler is guarded by correction officers rather than cared for by mental health workers, according to the writ of habeas corpus filed in U.S. District Court. “There is a group of cages used to hold detainees falsely labelled as ‘treatment booths.’ The petitioner is incarcerated rather than hospitalized under color of law by the State of New Hampshire,” Bloomenthal wrote.

Group therapy booths at the Secure Psychiatric Unit at the New Hampshire Prison for Men. Butler was civilly committed to the New Hampshire Hospital, the state’s psychiatric hospital, in the fall of 2017, then involuntarily transferred to the Secure Psychiatric Unit at the men’s prison, according to his father, Douglas Butler.

http://indepthnh.org/2018/04/27/patient-demands-mental-health-treatment-not-prison-since-he-hasnt-committed-a-crime/