Human rights and faith-based groups are asking the federal government to investigate how Florida treats mentally ill prisoners. The groups say no one is being held accountable for a man’s gruesome death two years ago.
Most people who’ve heard what happened to Darren Rainey in prison likely know the story because of a Miami Herald investigation that’s been unfolding since May. Reporter Julie Brown talked with other inmates and a prison nurse who were at Dade Correctional Institution in June of 2012. Rainey, a 50-year-old mentally ill man, was serving a two-year sentence for cocaine possession. Other prisoners told Brown, he had gone to the bathroom in his cell, and as a punishment, he was placed in a shower with no internal temperature control.
Florida Justice Institute Executive Director Randall Berg says the water that killed Rainey was hot enough to burn off large pieces of his skin.
“It’s common in institutions like correctional facilities or hospitals or whatever to have hot-water heaters that go much higher than you would have in a home,” he says.
He says the water had been as hot as 180 degrees, according to the nurse’s evaluation. The Justice Institute litigates on behalf of incarcerated people, and Berg says it’s not directly involved in Rainey’s case—but he believes what happened is indicative of a wider problem.
“Mentally ill people will tend to act out the manifestations of their mental illness, and instead of providing them with a reasonable accommodation, which is provided by the law, they instead tend to punish them,” he says.
The Florida Justice Institute has joined the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups calling for the federal Justice Department to investigate Rainey’s death and what Berg believes is a pattern of mistreatment.