RESOUR> [NetGold] CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRISONS : MENTAL ILLNESS: Prisons as Mental Institutions

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Net Happenings - From Educational CyberPlayGround
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Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 13:13:59 -0500 (EST)
From: David P. Dillard <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: NetGold <NetGold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [NetGold] CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRISONS : MENTAL ILLNESS:  Prisons as
    Mental Institutions

CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRISONS : MENTAL ILLNESS:  Prisons as Mental Institutions

There is a sizable and growing literature about the incarcerated
population of mentally ill people in the United States.


Prisons as Mental Institutions
The Mass Incarceration of the Mentally Ill
By JOANNE MARINER
Monday, Oct. 27, 2003
<http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20031027.html>

U.S. prisons and jails, packed with over two million inmates, hold many
people that society would be wise to keep elsewhere. With state budgets
bankrupted by the high costs of mass incarceration, the need to reconsider
the draconian sentences meted out to nonviolent drug offenders has never
been more obvious.

There is, moreover, another sizeable group of prisoners for which
wholesale imprisonment is even less appropriate: the mentally ill.
Prisoners with mental illness frequently endure violence, exploitation and
extortion at the hands of other inmates, and neglect and mistreatment by
prison staff. Not only is the experience of imprisonment
counter-therapeutic for such prisoners, many mental health experts believe
that it dramatically increases their chances of psychiatric breakdown.

Despite good reasons to limit the incarceration of the mentally ill, the
number of mentally ill people behind bars continues to grow. Over the past
few decades, the country's prisons and jails have become its default
mental health system. Somewhere between two and four hundred thousand
mentally ill people are incarcerated, several times more than the number
of people living in mental institutions.

-----------------------

Behavioral Health Matters
Treatment of Mentally Ill in Prisons and Jails: Follow-up Care Needed
from Drug Benefit Trends
Posted 08/11/2003
Jay M. Pomerantz, MD
<http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/458600>
[Free Medscape membership required for access to Medscape content.]

Currently, a good deal of treatment is being provided for mentally ill
inmates within the prison system, according to the Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS) of the US Department of Justice.[1] A prison census
conducted in June 2000 found that fewer than 1.8% of all inmates in
state-run institutions were held in facilities in which mental health
services were not available. Drawing from surveys of inmates conducted in
1997, the BJS found that 10.1% of inmates in state institutions reported
having a mental or emotional condition, and 10.7% said they had at least 1
overnight visit to a mental hospital or program.

The year 2000 prison census reported that nearly 13% of inmates in
state-run institutions (or about 19% of those inmates who were mentally
ill) received some form of mental health care from a trained professional
on a regular basis. Also, nearly 10% of all inmates (an estimated 114,400
inmates nationwide) were receiving psychotropic medications. The use of
these drugs, including antidepressants, stimulants, sedatives, and
tranquilizers, was most common in facilities specializing in mental health
confinement (45%), medical treatment facilities (22%), and female-only
confinement facilities (22%).

Although these statistics on treatment provided within the prison system
are reassuring, they tell us nothing about quality of care. More important
is whether the mental health treatment is continued after the inmate
returns to the community. Wolff and colleagues[2] surveyed officials of 17
New Jersey jails about release planning for inmates with mental illness
compared with other chronic (medical) illnesses (ie, heart disease,
HIV/AIDS). When asked to rate the importance of release planning for
persons with serious mental illness, 71% of the respondents (12 jails)
reported that it is very or extremely important. Yet officials at 10 of
the 17 jails reported that they provide after-release care for fewer than
10% of inmates with mental illness.

-----------------------

07/15/2001 - Updated 04:10 PM ET
One-fifth of mentally ill prisoners not treated
USA Today
 <http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/july01/2001-07-15-prisoners.htm>

WASHINGTON (AP)  About one-fifth of the estimated 191,000 inmates in state
prisons who were identified as mentally ill were not getting therapy or
counseling, the Justice Department reported Sunday.

A study based on 2000 data also showed that only 70% of state prison
facilities screen inmates for mental illness as a matter of policy.

"This is a modest survey," said lead researcher Alan Beck of the
department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

"We didn't assess what types of mental illness inmates were suffering
from. The numbers support that mental illness is a significant problem for
state prisons. How inmates are diagnosed and how easily they can receive
treatment is a subject worthy of attention," he said.

Mentally ill inmates account for 16% of the state prison population, and
79% of those identified as mentally ill were receiving therapy or
counseling, the report said.

Female inmates are treated for mental illness at a higher rate than male
prisoners.

-----------------------

frontline: a crime of insanity: the jailed and imprisoned ... (PBS)
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/crime/jailed/>

-----------------------

October 22, 2003 - The New York Times
Study Finds Hundreds of Thousands of Inmates Mentally Ill
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
<http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking/Mentally.html>

As many as one in five of the 2.1 million Americans in jail and prison are
seriously mentally ill, far outnumbering the number of mentally ill who
are in mental hospitals, according to a comprehensive study released
Tuesday.

The study, by Human Rights Watch, concludes that jails and prisons have
become the nation's default mental health system, as more state hospitals
have closed and as the country's prison system has quadrupled over the
past 30 years. There are now fewer than 80,000 people in mental hospitals,
and the number is continuing to fall.

The report also found that the level of illness among the mentally ill
being admitted to jail and prison has been growing more severe in the past
few years. And it suggests that the percentage of female inmates who are
mentally ill is considerably higher than that of male inmates.

-----------------------

Treatment of mentally ill by criminal justice system needs to improve,
says federal judge
By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press Writer
<http://www.namiscc.org/News/2002/Fall/InsanityDefense.htm>

HOUSTON (AP) - The Houston mother convicted of drowning her children in a
bathtub last year after a jury rejected her insanity defense belongs not
in prison, but in a mental health care institution, U.S. District Judge
William Wayne Justice said Wednesday.

Justice, a longtime critic of Texas' treatment of mentally ill prisoners,
said Andrea Yates' murder conviction in March was in part a result of
tougher insanity statutes following John Hinckley's acquittal by reason of
insanity for wounding President Ronald Reagan in an assassination attempt
in 1981.

"That response is why Andrea Yates is and will remain for the rest of her
days in prison, rather than in an institution where she could receive the
kind of psychiatric care which might have prevented the slaughter of her
children in the first place," Justice said during a lecture at the
University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

-----------------------

Experts portrays Texas prisons as horrific home for mentally ill
Psychologist's report is biased, ill-founded, flat wrong, state officials
say
By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, June 23, 2002
<http://www.geocities.com/prison_hell/ward.html>

Some mentally ill prisoners suffer their inner torment without proper
medication or supervision. Others receive little meaningful treatment even
when they are suicidal. And when nurses hand out pills, they sometimes
poke them through food slots or kick them under cell doors in a way that
allows unstable prisoners to hoard and abuse the drugs.

Those were among the findings of a 42-page report made public last week
that portrayed Texas prisons as a horrific home for perhaps thousands of
mentally ill criminals, a place where those Texans who are unable to
control themselves are kept locked in isolation cells.

Keith Curry, a Washington-based psychologist issued those findings in a
report he prepared for prisoners' attorneys in the just-closed Ruiz prison
reform lawsuit. Curry, who works for Applied Forensics LLP, is an expert
witness who has worked on prison mental-health cases in several other
states. His views challenged assertions by state officials that medical
care in Texas prisons is adequate, proper and much improved. Those
officials immediately branded the report as inaccurate, biased,
ill-founded -- and just flat mistaken.

-----------------------

Published on Monday, March 3, 2003 by the Guardian/UK
300,000 Mentally Ill in US Prisons
by Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0303-09.htm>

FROM PRISONS TO HOSPITALS - AND BACK :
THE CRIMINALIZATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS
<http://mhmr.chs.ky.gov/mh/gnu/files/Criminalization%20of%20Mentally%20Ill.htm>

-----------------------

In addition to these articles found on the internet, here citations to
some published journal articles that may be of interest on this subject.


Watson, Amy MA. Hanrahan, Patricia PhD. Luchins, Daniel MD. Lurigio,
Arthur PhD. Paths to Jail Among Mentally Ill Persons: Service Needs and
Service Characteristics. [Article] Psychiatric Annals. 31(7):421-429, July
2001.

Hall, John M senior medical officer. Mentally ill people in prisons :
Little has changed. [Letter] BMJ. 321(7258):449, August 12, 2000.

Arboleda-Florez, J.. Mental illness in jails and prisons. [Article]
Current Opinion in Psychiatry. 12(6):677-682, November 1999.

Welsh, Andrew. Ogloff, James R.P.. Mentally ill offenders in jails and
prisons: advances in service planning and delivery. [Miscellaneous]
Current Opinion in Psychiatry. 11(6):683-687, November 1998.

Steadman, Henry J. PhD. Morris, Suzanne M. MA. Dennis, Deborah L. MA. The
Diversion of Mentally Ill Persons from Jails to Community-Based Services:
A Profile of Programs. [Article] American Journal of Public Health.
85(12):1630-1635, December 1995.

Klotz TA, Summers BH, Richardson L, Gomberg DI, and Maloney M Community
reintegration for severely mentally ill patients leaving jail [CONFERENCE
ABSTRACT] 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association;
2001 May 5-10; New Orleans; LA, USA 2001.

Kupers TA. Forum. How are problems of mental illness being handled in the
prison system? [Journal Article] Harvard Mental Health Letter. 17(1):8,
2000 Jul.

Fryers T. Brugha T. Grounds A. Melzer D. Severe mental illness in
prisoners. [Journal Article. Editorial] British Medical Journal.
317(7165):1025-6, 1998 Oct 17.

Lovell D. Jemelka R. Coping with mental illness in prisons. [Journal
Article] Family & Community Health. 21(3):54-66, 1998 Oct.

Lamb HR. Weinberger LE. Persons with severe mental illness in jails and
prisons: a review. [Journal Article. Review] Psychiatric Services.
49(4):483-92, 1998 Apr.

Laben JK. Blum J. Persons with mental illness in jail. [Book Chapter.
Tables/Charts] Mental health nursing in the community (Worley NK).
Mosby-Year Book, Inc., (St. Louis, MO) ** (368-84) 1997.

Kravitz HM. Cavanaugh JL Jr. Rigsbee SS. A cross-sectional study of
psychosocial and criminal factors associated with arrest in mentally ill
female detainees. [Journal Article] Journal of the American Academy of
Psychiatry & the Law. 30(3):380-90, 2002.

Haimowitz S. Can mental health courts end the criminalization of persons
with mental illness?. [Journal Article] Psychiatric Services.
53(10):1226-8, 2002 Oct.

Diamond PM. Wang EW. Holzer CE 3rd. Thomas C. des Anges Cruser. The
prevalence of mental illness in prison. [Journal Article] Administration &
Policy in Mental Health. 29(1):21-40, 2001 Sep.

-------------------------------

The articles for which a web URL was provided may be read in their
entirety at the URL link provided.


Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetGold/>
<http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html>

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