On September 15, 2020, the ALC, Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project (PILP), and Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, on behalf of people with psychiatric disabilities incarcerated in Allegheny County Jail (ACJ). The lawsuit alleges severe and systemic constitutional violations, as well as violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, for the jail’s failure to provide adequate mental health care and its discriminatory and brutal treatment of people with psychiatric disabilities. The suit seeks to represent all people with psychiatric disabilities who are currently, or will in the future, be held at the Allegheny County Jail.

The lawsuit asserts that although ACJ houses hundreds of people with psychiatric disabilities, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, ACJ is lacking a functioning mental health care system. Every aspect of a comprehensive system for mental health care, from intake screening, to medication management, provision of counseling and therapy, suicide prevention, and training is either non-existent or wholly deficient at ACJ.  

The complaint contends that instead of ensuring proper staff training and adequate mental health staffing levels, or creating policies that provide adequate care, Warden Orlando Harper and Deputy Warden Laura Williams oversee a system that responds to people in mental health crisis with brutal levels of force and solitary confinement. People with psychiatric disabilities are tased, sprayed with OC, beaten, and placed in restraint chairs for several hours for minor infractions and for simply requesting mental health care. They are commonly placed in solitary confinement for weeks and months on end, often without having a hearing, in conditions universally acknowledged by correctional experts, courts and the United Nations as torture.

As a result of the systemic lack of mental health care and discrimination against people with psychiatric disabilities, the jail has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation. These dehumanizing conditions leave a lasting impact on communities outside of the jail, primarily Black communities. While Black people only make up 13.4% of the population of Allegheny County, they constitute a striking 61% of those held at ACJ. Most people invariably leave ACJ worse off than they enter it, making it more difficult to re-integrate into their communities and further fueling the cycles of incarceration, poverty, and trauma.

An agreement in the case was announced March 19, 2024. The landmark settlement, which is subject to court approval, demands substantial changes that will impact all people with psychiatric disabilities who are currently, or will in the future, be held at ACJ.

The lawsuit asserted that ACJ lacks a functioning mental health care system despite housing hundreds of people with psychiatric disabilities, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Every aspect of a comprehensive system for mental health care, from intake screening, to medication management, provision of counseling and therapy, suicide prevention, and training, was either non-existent or wholly deficient at ACJ at the time the lawsuit was filed.

Incarcerated individuals with mental health conditions will now have psychotherapy available, private interview spaces for counseling sessions and interactions with mental health staff, time frames in which mental health encounters must occur, new educational programming, and a renewed focus on treatment, de-escalation and reduction of use of force.

With this settlement, the County is committing to hire additional mental health staff, including staff that will be able to provide therapeutic counseling.  The County further has agreed to maintain minimum staffing levels to ensure appropriate levels of treatment.

Other key provisions include ensuring that mental health staff can make clinical decisions without interference from non-medical personnel.  Further, the agreement limits the amount of time any person with a mental health condition can be placed in segregation, provides that cages shall not constitute out-of-cell time, and requires “meaningful social interaction and treatment” for all.

Shaquille Howard, Brooke Goode, Jason Porter, Keisha Cohen, and Albert Castaphany served as representatives of the Class. The Class and the County filed a motion with the Court seeking approval of the settlement, noting that the settlement will protect all people with psychiatric disabilities who are currently, or will in the future, be held at the ACJ.

Read the full press release about the settlement.