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The House is expected to vote April 6 on a bill that would allow prison officials to take DNA samples from people even if they have been found not guilty by reason of insanity or are civilly committed to the Department of Corrections without having committed a crime.
Senate Bill 339, which has already passed the Senate and was recommended to pass by the House Criminal Justice Committee 10 to 3, infuriates Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton. Cushing has been fighting for years to require separate secure housing for mentally ill criminals and mentally ill patients who have not committed crimes.
“I don’t know why they want to do this to people who have never been charged with or accused of a crime,” Cushing said. “That’s part of what’s outrageous about this.”
New Hampshire Hospital, the state’s psychiatric hospital, transfers civilly committed patients who haven’t committed a crime to the Secure Psychiatric Unit at the State Prison for Men if they are deemed a danger to themselves or others.
They are housed there with mentally ill inmates who have been convicted of serious crimes, including homicide and sexual assault.
“It feeds into the presumption that people with mental illness are somehow criminal and lets the state get away with pretending that it’s OK to house people in prison instead of treating them in the hospital,” he said.
Cushing said this certainly wouldn’t happen to someone who was sent to the hospital for cancer or a heart attack. “Rather than provide treatment for people with severe mental illness, this will stigmatize and criminalize them.”
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About InDepthNH: Nancy West founded the nonprofit New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism in April. West is the executive editor of the center’s investigative news website, InDepthNH.org. West has won many awards for investigative reporting during her 30 years at the New Hampshire Union Leader. She has taught investigative journalism at the New England Center for Investigative Reporting’s summer program for pre-college students at Boston University. West is passionate about government transparency. The New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News, formerly called Investigative News Network, which is also InDepthNH.org’s fiscal sponsor. Click here to read about INN to learn more about the mission of nonprofit news.