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Abstract: 

Fred Cohen, who founded this publication in 1999 and wrote, edited, or commissioned every word in it since then, passed away in March, just shy of his 89th birthday. His advanced age will surely come as a great surprise to most readers, because Fred wrote and reasoned with the passion and vigor of a youthful idealist to the very end. He was, through a long career—as law professor, academic leader, prolific author, consulting attorney, court-appointed monitor, and one of the nation’s foremost experts on corrections, health care, mental disability, civil commitment, and criminal law—an eloquent and inspirational advocate for fairer, more humane, just, and effective treatment of inmates and especially those with mental disorders. Even in his final days, Fred oversaw the work on this issue of Correctional Mental Health Report. He participated in the conversation opposite, with associate editor Dora Rollins; recruited his long-time friend and colleague Terry Kupers to contribute an article on cell-front mental health interviews, an ineffective and unethical practice that has grown endemic in prison mental health; and welcomed the contribution of Bill Collins, with whom Fred co-founded the Correctional Law Reporter 34 years ago, on Judge Myron Thomson’s Omnibus Remedial Opinion in Braggs v. Dunn, the long-running mental health case Fred has written on extensively in these pages. Completing this special issue is a compelling article on boundary violations by Annette Liem, MD and James Knoll IV, MD; readers will remember Jim Knoll as associate editor of this report for ten years, from 2005-2014. A brilliant legal thinker and a thoroughly good, compassionate, and decent human being, Fred’s passing is a tremendous loss for the law, for corrections, for family and friends, for his hundreds of students, colleagues, and collaborators, and for those of us who had the honor and pleasure of working with him at Civic Research Institute for thirty years.

Keywords: Fred Cohen; Correctional Law Reporter; Correctional Mental Health Report

Affiliations:  1: Correctional Mental Health Report.