Without the prison clothing, Brian looks like any other college student, eating cheeseburgers in a college cafeteria.

His blue eyes, dark hair, dimples and his unassuming, affable interaction make it hard to see a person with bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and authority issues.

It's easier to see the little boy at East Petersburg Elementary School who bragged to all his friends that his absentee dad was a race car driver (even though he wasn't) than it is to see someone who robbed places for the adrenaline thrill or the young man who robbed his own mother and stepfather.

It's easier to see the young man who lets a tear slide in prison while watching a movie about a fire-breathing dragon who gives his life to save his rider than it is to see the person who burned the Chicken Wagon to the ground — even if it was unintentional like he said.

Instead Brian is eating cheeseburgers in Houtzdale State Prison — where he was never supposed to be in the first place.

Brian, whose last name is being withheld for his protection, should have been in a mental health institution getting treatment during the second year of his sentence, according to Judge Joseph Madenspacher's ruling.

But there are no mental health facilities that would take a parolee with an arson charge, said prison officials and Jim Laughman, executive director of Lancaster County's Office of Mental Health/Mental Retardation/Early Intervention.

State hospital was not an option, either, because Brian wasn't an imminent danger to himself or others.

Without a social service solution, Lancaster County Prison Warden Vincent Guarini sent Brian to the state prison system where Guarini thought Brian would get more help for his mental illness than the county prison could provide.

Hobie Crystal, Brian's attorney, said the whole point of Brian's sentence was lost in the process.

"The intent of the sentence was to get him punished for a period of about a year, followed by a year of treatment," Crystal said. "Because of the holes in the system, it turned into all punishment."

•••

Ever since Brian was 10, he has been in and out of residential mental health treatment facilities, accumulating diagnoses.

In prison, psychiatrists added intermittent explosive disorder, major depressive disorder and antisocial personality disorder to his list.

"If I feel disrespected, I'm going to tell them off," Brian said from prison in May. "If three or four come, I'm going to fight them off."

Seroquel, the medicine Brian was on when he came to prison, was supposed to keep Brian's "thought process in order," his mother said, but Brian preferred to store the Seroquel instead, trading it for honey buns. If staff crushed the pill so he wouldn't store it, he refused it. Sometimes he would take his antidepressant; sometimes he wouldn't, according to e-mails from prison officials sent to his mother.

Mostly unmedicated in the general prison population, Brian would get into trouble and periodically be punished by being locked in "the hole" — a restricted housing unit where prisoners are locked in individual cells and denied most privileges.

In a letter from state prison, Brian described being shot with a riot gun and held in a cell for three to four months with nothing but one pair of underwear. He described being strapped down for 48 hours with a 10-to-15-minute break.

"Now mind you, we were not angels," Brian wrote.

Guarini was not available this week for comment.

Brian's situation is not unique, according to a report released by the Human Rights Watch in 2003.

" … prisons are dangerous and damaging places for mentally ill people," according to a summary of the report. "Prison staff often punish mentally ill offenders for symptoms of their illness — such as being noisy or refusing orders, or even self-mutilation and attempted suicide.

"Mentally ill prisoners are more likely than others to end up housed in especially harsh conditions, such as isolation, that can push them over the edge into acute psychosis."

At the request of Brian's mother, who showed prison social workers files documenting his extensive mental health history, he was housed temporarily with older prisoners, who just wanted to serve their time and get out. Then he received drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment. During that time, he had no misconducts, his mother said.

Eventually Brian was transferred back to the general prison population, where he began to misbehave again, earning more than 200 days in the hole.

•••

A lot of that misbehavior could have been prevented, Brian's stepfather believes, if the prison would have housed him appropriately in regard to his mental illness.

"These assault charges and stuff, granted, it probably happened, but did it have to happen? Brian will get to the point where there's no way out, and he's going to rebel. I've seen it happen. He was somebody who you could back pretty far into the corner, but once he knew he was stuck, that was it."

When Brian learned in July 2006 that he would not be paroled and would be stuck in the "dgs" (don't get s---) part of the prison indefinitely, he quit caring. His behavior degenerated to what Brian said is status quo for the hole, including throwing feces at other prisoners and guards.

"I had nothing to lose," Brian said, "except to get beat up."

In a letter to Guarini, in August 2006, Brian's mother pleaded with the warden to have him transferred to the prison's mental health unit.

Guarini had already come up with a solution: "Brian's actions had made it impossible for him to get to a community treatment facility and after all attempts at finding him a facility with the assistance of in-house staff, parole and the Mental Health Office, to just warehouse him, as you state, would not be beneficial to Brian."

He continued: "Brian was in a 'Catch 22,' as he could only be released to a program and, based on his charges and behavior, no program would accept him."

So the county prison sent him to Camp Hill, a state prison, where he would be evaluated and placed at one of the state facilities to receive care not provided on a county level.

"In Brian's case," Guarini wrote,"the jail has no ability to address his needs, which jail seems to exacerbate, not alleviate."

In spite of the extensive mental health records that accompanied Brian's transfer, Camp Hill placed him at Houtzdale State Prison in the general prison population. No mental health records accompanied him to Houtzdale, according to an e-mail from Brian's counselor at Houtzdale to his mother. Brian said Camp Hill officials never gave him a mental health evaluation, and he is currently on no medication.

Sheila Moore, deputy press secretary for the state Department of Corrections, disputes Brian's story. She said all incoming prisoners get 6 to 8 weeks' worth of evaluation that includes a psychiatric examination.

Even without treatment, Brian said, it's easier to keep his behavior under control at Houtzdale because there isn't as much gang activity.

•••

Brian was released from Houtzdale, yesterday, July 4, when he maxed out his sentence. He has nowhere to go, except the street, where he plans to "get drunk and find a girl."

Then he figures he'll find a job and find a place to live, he said. He would go to a mental health facility if one would take him, he said, though he doesn't consider himself mentally ill.

His mother and stepfather have not allowed him to live at home since he robbed them.

His mother has been trying to find supported housing for him, but, so far, her searching has come up empty again. Supported housing programs shake their heads at his arson charge. A few suggested they could provide services if he found his own housing. He probably will have to live at a homeless shelter, she said.

She hopes to get him tied into other community resources and take him to see a psychiatrist. But she fears that won't be enough to keep him stable and away from bad influences.

"My concern," she said, "is that he's going to offend and end up in Lancaster County Prison again."

E-mail: lespenshade@lnpnews.com