Videos of half a dozen mentally ill prisoners being heavily pepper-sprayed — even while naked and screaming for help — have forced change in California’s prison policy.
The California official in charge of adult prisons said Wednesday he sought the changes in part because of the disturbing videos, the Los Angeles Times reports. The videotapes are being used as evidence in a lawsuit filed by prisoners’ lawyers when asking a federal judge to require psychiatric hospitalization for the most mentally ill prisoners on death row and to ban the use of pepper spray on mentally ill inmates. The court hearings surrounding the lawsuit began at the start of October.
The state said in court documents that guards regularly use canisters of pepper spray the size of a fire extinguisher on inmates when a much smaller quantity could be used, the Associated Press reports.
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