DRUG ABUSE

``The medical care is a mess because they don't want to spend the money on proper care,'' said Babb, the former nurse who quit.

In a facility already rife with drug and alcohol abuse, documents and interviews show that for years the center dispensed powerful medications without proper safeguards. Former nurses claim they often were intimidated by residents who demanded everything from painkillers to cough syrup. When the nurses refused, they said some of the men threatened them or threw violent temper tantrums.

``They would come up maybe four times a day for narcotics, and if you didn't have them, they would intimidate you,'' said Marjorie Ranger, a nurse who worked there for three years before quitting in 2004.

Even worse, Ranger says, the center's administration often forced nurses to fill prescriptions without a doctor's signature or continue doling out drugs even after a doctor's orders expired - both violations of state law.

``Every nurse working there knows her license is on the line,'' Ranger said. ``Xanax, Ativan, all kinds of medications were going out of there like they were candy. I would look at the charts and find doctors' orders were not signed. They were written up by nurses without signatures.''

Those claims are backed up by the DCF's own reports, which state in 2005 that ``Medication and other treatment are too often ordered without adequate explanation or records support.''

Last year, a resident - who had no diagnosis of mental illness - was given the powerful anti-psychotic medication Zyprexa after experiencing fear, suicidal thoughts and paranoia when the center changed his dormitory, according to the DCF's own report.

In other cases, drugs that doctors properly prescribed were not available.

One case noted by the DCF in 2003 found an offender waited nearly a month for cardiac medication. In other cases, the agency found psychotropic drugs prescribed by doctors were not available for seven to 10 days.

ATTEMPTS AT SUICIDE

Joseph Myers, 32, was first arrested for a sex crime at age 7. Diagnosed with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, Myers was hospitalized twice for attempted suicides before going to prison on sex charges in 1997.

Confined to the treatment center since 2001, Myers has slit his wrists with a plastic knife and attempted suicide there many times.

In November 2005, he was forced into solitary confinement for having sex with another resident - though Myers filed complaints saying the man had been stalking him for months.

Records from his psychiatric file, which Myers let The Miami Herald examine, show that he complained of hearing voices telling him to kill himself after he was placed in confinement. But to this day, the only psychiatric counseling Myers receives inside the center are sessions with a contract psychiatrist about once a month.

Contrillo is in the same boat. Diagnosed with borderline personality and bipolar disorders, he has been placed in psychiatric hospitals nearly a dozen times since the age of 11.

He has mutilated himself repeatedly inside the center, which contributed to the infection that caused him to lose most of his arm. The only help he receives is psychotropic drugs and occasional visits with a contract psychiatrist.

TREATED `LIKE A DOG'

``My brother has mental and emotional problems, but they treat him like a dog,'' Contrillo's sister, Sue Alexander, told The Miami Herald.

While holding at least 125 men like Contrillo and Myers, the center had no stand-alone mental health program until 2004, when the DCF admitted the need for an additional 25 staff members to create a special unit after repeated requests by Liberty.