Résumé
Woefully deficient mental health services in many prisons leave prisoners undertreated – or not treated at all. Based on more than two years of research and hundreds of interviews with prisoners, corrections officials, mental health experts and attorneys, this report provides a detailed examination of the state of mental health services available to prisoners, concluding that they cannot get appropriate care because of a shortage of qualified staff, lack of facilities, and prison rules that interfere with treatment. The report makes recommendations on services and regulations that would assist and protect mentally ill prisoners.
Contenu
1. Summary. – 2. Recommendations. – 3. Background. – 3.1. Rates of incarceration of the mentally ill. – 3.2. Deinstitutionalization, crime and punishment, and the rise in the mentally ill prisoner population. – 3.3. Criminalizing the mentally ill. – 3.4. Diversion. – 4. Who are the mentally ill in prison? – 5. Mental illness and women prisoners. – 5.1. Case study: R. M. and the seriously mentally ill women prisoners in Vermont. – 6. Systems in transition. – 6.1. Reform through litigation. – 6.2. The problems of funding mental health services in prison. – 7. Inadequate responses and abuses by correctional staff. – 7.1. The mental health role of correctional staff. – 7.2. Mental health training for custodial staff. – 7.3. Correctional officer’s use of excessive force. – 7.4. Other abuses and inappropriate responses. – 9. Inadequate mental health treatment in prisons. – 10. Insufficient provision of specialized facilities for seriously ill prisoners. – 10. 1. Crisis care. – 10.2. Specialized intermediate care units. – 10.3. Expansion of specialized care facilities. – 11. Case study: Alabama, a system in crisis. – 12. Mentally ill prisoners and segregation. – 13. Suicide and self-mutilation. – 14. Failure to provide discharge services. – 15. Legal standards.