Court Approves Mass. Prison Mental Health Settlement

See this article from the New York Times.  It begins:

A federal judge on Thursday approved a settlement meant to guarantee alternatives to segregation for mentally ill inmates in Massachusetts prisons.

The settlement results from a lawsuit filed in 2007 by an advocacy group. It sought to stop Massachusetts from placing mentally ill inmates with disciplinary problems in small isolation cells for up to 23 hours a day, saying that doing so violated their constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act.