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WEKU
Brett Sholtis

In county jails, guards use pepper spray, stun guns to subdue people in mental crisis

An investigation of records from 25 county jails across Pennsylvania shows that nearly 1 in 3 "use of force" incidents by guards involved a prisoner who was having a psychiatric crisis or who had a known mental illness. Guards used weapons like stun guns or pepper spray to subdue prisoners who may have been unable to understand what was going on. (Ibrahim Rayintakath for NPR)

When police arrived on the scene, they found Ishmail Thompson standing naked outside a hotel near Harrisburg, Pa., after he had just punched a man. After they arrested him, a mental health specialist at the county jail said Thompson should be sent to the hospital for psychiatric care.

However, after a few hours at the hospital, a doctor cleared Thompson to return to jail. With that decision, he went from being a mental health patient to a Dauphin County Prison inmate. Now he was expected to comply with orders — or be forced to.

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