http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid43502.aspx

Watch your backs

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.