KY Prison Under Investigation After Staff Allegedly Allows Inmate to Starve Himself to Death

An inmate in the Kentucky State Penitentiary has died after starving himself to death, the Associated Press reports. His death is under criminal review by the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, and the doctor responsible for care in the prison has been fired.

James Kenneth Embry, a 57-year-old man with three years left on a nine-year term he was serving for drug-related offenses, began refusing most of his meals in December of last year, after undergoing a series of mental-health related breakdowns, including refusing to take his anti-anxiety medication. Months later his requests to be put back on his medication were denied by the prison’s medical staff, the report alleges. An internal investigation has brought up serious questions about the ways inmates with mental health problems, and those who begin hunger strikes, are handled:

According to the report of the internal investigation, Embry stopped taking medications for anxiety in May 2013. Seven months later, he told the lead prison psychologist, Jean Hinkebein, on Dec. 3 that he felt anxious and paranoid and wanted to restart those medications. But the psychologist concluded Embry didn’t have any significant mental health issues even though Embry repeatedly talked about wanting to hurt himself. Hinkebein and an associate considered his comments vague, and his request for medication was denied.

Embry stopped eating soon thereafter. On the day he died, a prison nurse refused a request to have him moved to the infirmary, and Steve Hiland, the head physician for the facility agreed he could be taken off of hunger strike watch because he was drinking tea; Embry had skipped 35 of the last 36 meals offered before his death. Hiland has since been fired, although he maintains that his dismissal was a cost-cutting measure by the Corrections Department.

Earlier this year a hunger strike carried out by inmates at a supermax facility in Colorado brought to light the practice of force-feeding prisoners, something opponents say is akin to torture. Last year inmates in California conducted one of the largest hunger strikes in history, protesting the practice of solitary confinement.

Last week Mediaite hosted a discussion in Austin, Texas, about the state of the American criminal justice system, which you can watch here.

[Image via WikiCommons]

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>> Luke O’Neil is a journalist and blogger in Boston. Follow him on Twitter (@lukeoneil47).

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.