Showing posts with label prison. Show all posts

By the numbers: Mental illness behind bars

BY SARAH VARNEY, KAISER HEALTH NEWS  May 15, 2014 at 6:39 PM EDT
prison and barbed wire
Uninsured former inmates stand to gain health care under Medicaid expansion. Screen grab by PBS NewsHour Weekend
Psychological disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder and trauma-related disorders, are rampant among inmates, and mental illness itself is a risk factor for landing in jail.

“We’ve, frankly, criminalized the mentally ill, and used local jails as de facto mental health institutions,” said Alex Briscoe, the health director for Alameda County in northern California.
The statistics paint a stark picture, with mental illness affecting a greater percentage of jailed women than men:
  • In state prisons, 73 percent of women and 55 of men have at least one mental health problem
  • In federal prisons, 61 percent of women and 44 percent of men
  • In local jails, 75 percent of women and 63 percent of men

The Affordable Care Act — and its expansion of Medicaid — is expected to connect previously uninsured ex-offenders with medical care and mental health treatment.

But in the short term, jails and prisons remain the places where those with severe psychosis are housed: There are now three times more people with serious mental illness incarcerated in the United States than in hospitals, and the types of behavioral and mental health problems among inmates are becoming more severe.

 Read the full article at PBS 

(http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/numbers-mental-illness-behind-bars/)

mental health

Better care sought for mentally ill inmates

In less than 72 hours, Zlatko Sego went from enjoying birthday cake in his family home to being found dead in a Toronto jail.
Sego, 39, who lived with schizophrenia, was found hanging by bed sheets in his cell at the Toronto (Don) Jail on April 19, 2012.
His suicide highlights what experts call the “medieval” system of sending people with mental illness to jail. Advocates worry those with severe mental illness continue to be stuck behind bars instead of in hospital for treatment.
“It’s like putting you in jail for having cancer. You’d say, ‘Well, what did I do? I was born this way,’ ” said criminal defence lawyer Frank Addario, who is currently fighting a case centred on the issue at the Supreme Court of Canada. “They seem the least desirable constituency that exists.”
This summer, a coroner’s inquest will try to determine how it got this way — and why the system let Sego down.
Read the full article at The Star 
(http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2014/02/17/better_care_sought_for_mentally_ill_inmates.html)

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> A NIGHTMARE OF PRISON MENTAL HEALTH
mental illness

Use of police cells during mental health crises to be halved

  • , home affairs editor
  • The Guardian, 

  • The number of times police cells are used as a place of safety for people having a mental health crisis is intended to be halved under a far-reaching agreement between police, mental health trusts and paramedics.

  • The "crisis care concordat" signed by 22 national organisations, including the Department of Health, the Home Office and the charity Mind, is aimed at securing dramatic improvements in the treatment of people having a mental heath crisis.

  • The concordat suggests that health-based places of safety and beds should be available all the time. It says police custody should not be used because mental health services are not available, and police cars and other vehicles should not be used as ambulances to transfer patients. "We want to see the number of occasions police cells are used as a place of safety for people in mental health crisis halved compared with 2011-12," it says.
Read the full article at the Guardian 

(http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/18/police-cells-mental-health-detentions)
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> A NIGHTMARE OF PRISON MENTAL HEALTH
mental health

A NIGHTMARE OF PRISON MENTAL HEALTH



 

The United States has been convulsed in recent years with arguments over mental health services, usually in the wake of rampage violence, which is blamed on mentally ill people regardless as to the mental health status of the culprit — to commit such crimes, evidently, is to be a ‘madman,’ regardless as to any actual evidence for or against that thesis. The sane want to see the insane locked away where we can’t hurt anyone, while the insane just want to access some mental health services so we can live our lives in relative health, happiness, and safety.
In other words, all we truly want are some basic human and civil rights, along with a recognition of the fact that we are human beings and deserve the same respect accorded to all people. Living with a mental illness does not make someone a criminal, and the increasing trend towards criminalising mental illness is both frightening and dangerous. It is turning mental health providers into police, police into mental health providers, and patients into pawns to be moved around a very dangerous and sometimes explosive chess board.
Read the full article at Disability Intersections
(http://disabilityintersections.com/2014/02/a-nightmare-of-prison-mental-health/)

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