Inmate’s Sojourn Puts Focus on Alleged Treatment Abuses

VACAVILLE, Calif. —  Gentle-appearing Charley Griffin has the mind of a disturbed child in the body of a big, dangerous convict.

The treatment Griffin has received as an inmate of the state prison system goes to the heart of a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Sacramento, which alleges that corrections officials routinely neglect and mistreat mentally ill and retarded convicts. Griffin testified in the lawsuit because he is mentally ill and retarded.

Recently, he talked to a visitor in an interview room at the California Medical Facility Prison at Vacaville. Because he was away from his cellblock, a chain was wrapped around his waist, and his wrists were handcuffed to the chain. Long, wavy hair framed friendly eyes as Griffin stared at his visitor and spoke in childlike phrases.

Griffin was born in Bakersfield in 1968. As a boy, he was put on medication in an attempt to control his hyperactivity. It didn’t work.

“I was out of control,” he recalled. “I ran away. Broke windows.”

He never learned to read or write.

“It’s hard for me to learn,” Griffin said. “I’m slow. I know that.”

But he learned how to fight.

“That’s the only thing I know how to do.”

When he was 12, Griffin was sent to the state mental hospital at Porterville; he liked the facility.

“They helped me out,” he said. “Tried to learn me to read. Tried to teach me to behave myself. They teach you how to play games. Teach you how to be nice to people.”

Griffin was placed in a series of foster and group homes, but he kept running away and used drugs. At 18, he was sentenced to the California Youth Authority facility at Paso Robles for assault with a deadly weapon.

After his release, Griffin committed burglaries and other crimes; at 20, he was sent to state prison.

When he got out, Griffin continued to commit such crimes as strong-armed robberies, and in November, 1990, he was sent back to prison.

By this time, Griffin was hearing inner voices and had been receiving psychiatric medication outside prison. But he testified in federal court that he spent about four months at the state prison at Tehachapi without receiving medication or seeing a psychiatrist.

During that time, Griffin testified, he assaulted other inmates who made fun of him. He also said that guards teased him and that he was shot with a stun gun to keep him under control.

In March, 1991, Griffin was transferred to the state prison at Corcoran to serve two years in solitary confinement for assaulting another inmate.

The victim, Griffin’s cellmate, had been pointed out by another convict as a child molester. Such offenders are frequently targeted for assault or murder in prison.

“Someone read his paperwork and said: ‘He’s your cellie. You’ve got to take care of it,’ ” Griffin said.

Griffin dropped an 85-pound barbell on the man’s head.

After spending three to four weeks in solitary confinement at Corcoran, Griffin testified, he was allowed to see a psychiatrist but received no medication or treatment.

He continued to hear voices that “tells me to destroy up stuff, tell me to tear up stuff.”

After more than a year at Corcoran, Griffin was transferred to the Pelican Bay State Prison, where he remained in solitary confinement and continued to hear the voices urging destruction.

“Every time I rip up a mattress, I see a big flame flop up,” he testified. “And next I got spirits and next I never sleep with that mattress. I tell ‘em to keep it, I don’t want no mattress.”

At Pelican Bay, a psychiatrist put him on medication, Griffin testified, but he continued to hear voices and destroy things.

In October, Griffin was transferred to the medical center prison at Vacaville, where he receives psychiatric therapy and reading lessons as well as medication. Through good behavior, he has earned the privilege of going out onto the main yard.

Griffin is to be released from prison in April. He hopes to be admitted to a mental hospital.