"How's it going Frank?" Matt asks Frank brightly, trying to sound positive while visiting him in jail.
"Good" Frank answers in a robotic kind of voice. His voice sounds a little different; like a higher, weaker tone. He's lost a lot of weight too, and his eyes look sunken and dim. He's probably down about forty pounds from when he first was arrested less than two months ago.
"We're trying to get you out of here Frank. We're looking for a nice place for you to go." Matt assures him.
"Okay" is all Frank says.
"You lost a lot of weight; what's going on? I thought you liked the food here." Matt has never seen Frank this thin.
"They're stealing my food." Frank answers.
Matt is shocked at the difference in Frank's appearance and demeanor. He looks over at one of the guards standing nearby. He offers, "Yeah man, he's kind of having a rough time now. All his buddies left and there's a whole new crew here now. They're giving him a hard time, I think it's been rough on him. We have to keep him in his cell for his own safety."
It was the interaction with the other prisoners that helped improve Frank's condition initially, but now, being kept alone, basically in solitary confinement, languishing in his cell, has had a horrific deteriorating effect. Apparently Frank is not the only person this has happened to. A lawsuit has been filed against the Pennsylvania Prison System for keeping mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement without proper medical care.
A social worker for the prison called and asked us if we found a place for Frank to live yet. He explained that the warden doesn't think Frank belongs in jail and wants him out. Perhaps he is as alarmed as we are at Frank's dramatic decline. Frank has been found incompetent to stand trial, so there is no reason for him to be in jail other than the judge will not release him to us; maybe with good reason. There is no question that Frank is debilitating in prison though and we need to figure something out. I'm perplexed why the social worker is asking us if we've found a place for Frank, when it's his expertise. He must not even be trying. I called "A Place for Mom" but the best they could do is a half-way house about three hours away in the mountains near the Delaware Water Gap. It's a beautiful park and camping area, but we would rarely be able to visit and they provided no nursing care, just a bed in a home. That would not be a long term solution. Finally, based on a recommendation from the social worker, Matt called a group home right near the prison. It's a regular house in a regular neighborhood, but it's been converted to a nursing home with ramps and a big parking lot and houses about ten people plus two staff and a nurse. The director, to our surprise, agrees to interview Frank to see if he's a suitable candidate for the home. We get great news that she will "take a chance" on Frank; her words. She reported back to Matt that Frank is "dangerously malnourished". She said that she felt that Frank was in imminent danger of death by starvation if we didn't get him out of George Hill Prison quickly. This woman is our new hero.
The only hold-up is that the home cannot accept someone with criminal charges against them. Through the social worker, the director of the group home communicated to the warden that the charges need to be dropped. The warden called the judge in this case to let him know. This is not the woman judge from Domestic Court, this is a male judge from the Civil Section assigned to Frank's PFA violation. This judge seems like he's trying to be fair; unlike our experience in Domestic Relations. He realized that Frank needs this group home, but he can't drop the charges himself. He has to call Fargo. Fargo has to call Kat who, in her passive-aggressive manner, refuses to drop the charges. The judge had to call Kat and Fargo into his chambers for a meeting in person to berate Kat into doing the right thing. I don't know what he had to say to her to get her to do it, but knowing her, it took a lot of pressure. Meanwhile, while all this negotiating is going on, there's an empty bed at the home losing money. The director told us that we had three days before they were going to go to the next person on the list. This was just one more way that Kat could hurt Frank and I have no doubt that if she knew of the three day time limit, she would have taken four to make her decision.
Two months after arriving at George W. Hill Correctional Facility, Frank leaves looking like a hollow shell of the person who went in.
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