Legal/Prison Issues

Overview of legal and correctional challenges when MPD/DID is involved in criminal cases, drawing on Dr. Allison's 13 years at a state prison.

person Ralph B. Allison, M.D.
MPD forensic prison legal

My initial job in Santa Cruz was Mental Health Program Chief. One part of that job was to oversee the psychiatric care of county jail inmates. I also saw defendants on court order to determine their sanity and/or competency to stand trial. So I became, by default, one of the few psychiatrists in town who would go to court and testify about such jail inmates. One of them turned out to be a male multiple, whom I write about in �Minds In Many Pieces.� A woman inmate who was multiple worked at the jail as a nurse when she wasn�t incarcerated there as an inmate. Her story is in a book called �Tell Me Who I Am Before I Die.� I then was called on by defense attorneys when they suspected they had a defense because of such a diagnosis. This led to my involvement in the Hillside Strangler Case, a notorious serial killer case in California and Washington state. One of the pair of killers, Kenneth Bianchi, based his defense on the possibility he had a killer alter inside of him, Steve, who was not known to Ken at the time of the murders.

Then, my last job was as a prison psychiatrist, treating inmates all day long. Some of them showed signs of multiplicity and presented major problems in management and treatment. Again, I learned a lot I would have missed if I had stayed in an office practice in town.