This Just In

A Supermax “graduate”

Watch your backs

By LANCE TAPLEY | July 11, 2007

For 20 months, the Portland Phoenix has reported on inadequate mental-health care for Maine prison inmates, especially for those in the 100-man, solitary-confinement Supermax inside the state prison in Warren. The Supermax makes mentally unstable prisoners worse, its critics say.

“I reached out and told them I need medication. I reached out and told them I shouldn’t be out in society. I told numerous cops, numerous guards,” Michael Woodbury, a recent Supermax “graduate,” told reporters July 5, according to the Associated Press.

Woodbury, 31, from Windham, had just publicly admitted killing three men in a Conway, New Hampshire, store robbery July 2. Among his incarcerations, which began when he was 16, was a five-year sentence to the Maine prison (for robbery and theft) that ended in May. He was in the Supermax, he wrote in an on-line personal ad.

During his sentence, Woodbury gave a four-page “manifesto” to a prison therapist saying he “was going to crack like this,” he told reporters. His adoptive father told the AP Woodbury was mentally ill and did not get proper treatment in prison.

“He’s psycho and he will do about anything. He kept telling us that he is a demon and can read people’s minds,” Renee Gagne, 17, of Windham, told the New Hampshire Union Leader. With her sister, she accompanied Woodbury on a recent alleged crime spree through Southern states.

Citing state confidentiality laws, Maine associate corrections commissioner Denise Lord refused to discuss anything about Woodbury’s incarceration or his treatment — if any — for mental problems.

Because Woodbury was not on probation, Lord disclaimed departmental responsibility for his actions after his release and rejected the idea they represented a failure of the department, whose mission includes working to “reduce the likelihood that an offender will offend again.”

Governor John Baldacci’s spokesman, David Farmer, said: “The [prison’s] mental health system does the best it can do with very limited resources,” and “if there’s a failure,” it lies with Woodbury.

Letters to the Portland editor: April 20, 2007
Mainers upset over the Bush Administration and its top lawyer Alberto Gonzalez are sadly mistaken if they think callous indifference to human life does not exist here as well.
The trials of Bernard Baran
This story originally appeared in the June 18, 2004 issue of the Boston Phoenix .
The mentally ill, criminalized
She is afraid he will continue to be kept in the Supermax, which will make him worse, she says.
Comma self
The “comma self” murder has for decades been one of the most important innovations in American-headline literature, a testament to both our national fascination with verbal brevity and to our sociopathic, codependent relationship to deadly violence: FLA. MAN KILLS WIFE, DOG, MOTHER, ACCOUNTANT, SELF.
Can RI back away from the war on drugs?
When Rhode island voters narrowly approved a measure last November to allow felons on probation to vote, it marked an important step away from the kind of supposedly “tough on crime” policies that have long typified American criminal justice policy.
Fulsome prison blues
If a Hollywood It-Girl really wants to leave her mark this summer, she’ll have to work a lot harder than usual.
Anti-solitary campaign expands
As the February 17 State House public hearing approaches on the bill to restrict solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), which sparked national debate about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, has announced its support.
A rape victim speaks out
I am a 25-year-old freelance classical musician from Maine currently pursuing my MFA in Writing and trying to get the most from my twenties.
Inmate sues prison officials in federal court
Did the Maine Department of Corrections violate the First Amendment’s free-speech guarantee by keeping inmate and human-rights activist Deane Brown from contact with the news media?
Stonewalling is normal
I could cite many examples of the difficulty in reporting to the Maine public what goes on behind the cement and bureaucratic walls of the public’s prison system — especially, in reporting brutal practices. I will give just a few.
The Baran interview
Less

Topics: This Just In , Health and Fitness, Criminal Sentencing and Punishment, Crime, More

| More

ARTICLES BY LANCE TAPLEY

LAWMAKERS MOSTLY STAND UP AGAINST ENVIRONMENTAL ASSAULT | May 23, 2012
Republican state Senator Thomas Saviello, at one point widely considered a foe of Maine's environment, may have just saved it. At the least, he was a leader in saving a good part of it.

‘30,000 DRONES’ OVER AMERICA AND OTHER STORIES | May 09, 2012
"You are now being watched by 30,000 drones," Second District congressional primary candidate Blaine Richardson dramatically told the 3000 people assembled at the Republican State Convention in Augusta on May 5.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE EAST-WEST HIGHWAY? | May 02, 2012
Eminent domain! The government's ability to seize land for a public purpose strikes terror into the hearts of many landowners.

GOP LEGISLATORS STICK WITH ALEC | April 25, 2012
Faced with a campaign asking him and seven other Republican legislators to quit the controversial conservative lobbyist-legislator coalition ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — House assistant majority leader Andre Cushing, of Hampden, says: "If they can give me a reason why this is harmful to the state, I'll consider it."

MAINSTREAM PROGRESSIVES GET OCCUPIED | April 18, 2012
"We are the 99 percent!" reverberates in the basement of the Portland Public Library on a Saturday morning. Ninety radicals — well, maybe damn strong liberals — are plotting to take over the government — well, in any case, to harass the one percent.