Indiana’s confinement of mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement is cruel and unusual under the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, a federal judge ruled last week in one of just a handful of decisions on the severe treatment. In a sweeping class action ruling that affects all current and future mentally ill patients subject to segregated confinement in the state, U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt found that the “effect of segregation on mentally ill prisoners in Indiana is toxic to their welfare,” exacerbating their condition and severely limiting their chances for rehabilitation:

Tragically, a disproportionately high percentage of suicides are committed by prisoners in segregation compared with those in the general population of a prison system. This is true both within the IDOC and in correctional settings across the country. [...]

[T]he severe conditions in the segregation units cause a predictable deterioration of the mental health of seriously mentally ill prisoners and the IDOC has explicitly observed, diagnosed and noted patient decompensation. Records from a prisoner who recently committed suicide disclose that there was only one correctional staff member for the entire area and the staff person was unable to visually supervise the prisoner. Records of another prisoner who committed suicide in late 2010 note that on one occasion shortly before his death he could not be brought to a mental health appointment because “custody unable to escort.” He was not seen for a week. He was scheduled to be seen again shortly before his suicide, but his medical records note that he “did not appear” for the appointment. He committed suicide within days of the missed appointment … [T]here is a difference between mental health monitoring and mental health treatment. The IDOC is performing the former in its segregation units, but very little of the latter.

The opinion describes confinement of as much as 22.5 hours per day, with most of it spent in small cells but for some limited recreation opportunities, medical appointments, and showers at least 3 times per week – in another small isolated space where prisoners are sometimes locked for extended periods of time. The average stays in isolation range from 1 to 3 years, depending on the reason for isolation. And mentally ill prisoners make up a disproportionate 22 percent of the state’s isolated prisoners.

Several journalists who have spent time in solitary confinement have recounted the extreme distress that sets in within days. Shane Bauer, one of the American hikers who was imprisoned in Iran, described the conditions of solitary confinement at Pelican Bay as at least as bad, or arguably worse, than those in Iran and called the experience of solitary confinement “a living death.” The ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights and The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law all call the practice torture and Human Rights Watch calls it at the very least cruel and inhuman treatment in violation of international law.

The impact of these conditions is compounded for vulnerable populations like the mentally ill and children as young as 13, who are also subject to solitary confinement in the U.S. A federal judge ruled in 1995 that the conditions at the Pelican Bay prison visited by Bauer were unconstitutional as applied at least to the mentally ill, and a Colorado judge ruled in September that at least some conditions of solitary confinement violated the Eighth Amendment. Other states have since agreed to limit solitary confinement for the mentally ill, but most of those cases have ended with settlements rather than decisions, according to an ACLU memo. Last week’s decision relied heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2011 ruling that conditions at California’s severely overcrowded prisons were cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment.

The court has not yet determined what the remedy will be for this constitutional violation, but USA Today reports that Indiana officials are already “scrambling for solutions,” including 30-day reviews, and removal from segregation of inmates who are observed to be deteriorating.

During the 2012 fiscal year, the federal government spent more on immigration enforcement — $18 billion — than on every other federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to a new report from the Migration Policy Institute. The spending on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection dwarfs the combined $14.4 billion spent on the FBI; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Secret Service.

The U.S. has spent more than $187 billion on immigration enforcement since President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986 — which first made it illegal for employers to hire undocumented workers along with strengthening U.S. border security. Adjusted for inflation, the U.S. now spends 15 times as much on immigration enforcement as it did in the mid-1980s. And the number of deportations and immigration-related prosecutions has also jumped along with the increased spending:

The Migration Policy Institute found that ICE and CBP also refer more cases to prosecution than those other agencies combined, and the immigration agencies also held more individuals in fiscal year 2011 than the federal Bureau of Prisons. [...]

At the same time, deportations have exploded. The U.S. deported about 30,000 people in the 1990 fiscal year; in the 2012 fiscal year, it removed a record 409,894. A majority of those people were deported without an order from an immigration judge, instead using DHS’ discretion, the Migration Policy Institute found.

President Obama has taken steps to try to limit deportations that separate families living in the U.S., but as the MPI report highlights, officials are not using the discretionary policies available. In addition to a new rule announced last week that allows undocumented immigrants who can prove that time away from a parent, spouse or child will cause “extreme hardship” to return to the United States while they apply for legal status, the deferred action measure announced last summer has already succeeded in temporarily blocking deportation of more than 4,500 immigrants, with some 150,000 other applications pending.

But the high costs and increasing number of deportations continue to show exactly why Congress needs to address comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. With comprehensive reform that provides a path to citizenship, the U.S. would see a cumulative $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product — the largest measure of economic growth — over 10 years in addition to $4.5 billion to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue over just three years if the 11 million undocumented immigrants were legalized.