Guide to Mental Health in the Prison System

As a volunteer in a transition home for ex-inmates in local prisons, I have seen firsthand the effects that mental health intervention in prisons and out of prison has on the rehabilitation of persons who have been imprisoned. It has been estimated that up to twenty five percent of inmates suffer from some sort of mental illness. Many have resulted to the point of imprisonment because of the mental disorder.

Mental health treatments in the prison system, as it have been estimated that jails house more mentally ill individuals than any other institutions. Unfortunately, the prison health system is overpopulated with those suffering from mental illness of the following varieties: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and many other mental illnesses.

Inmates with mental health systems are often at a lack of proper mental health assessments. While being assessed in prisons, inmates have little access to proper medications. Medical and pharmaceutical intervention is crucial in any mental health treatment plan - and cessation of medication can cause problems on a variety of levels.

Inmates need the help of support staff and systems to become rehabilitated - and how can we rehabilitate inmates? First, we must come up with individualized plans for each and every inmate. Psychiatrists trained in interventions with ex-criminals need to work with support staff to create these individualized plans and create treatments combined with medical therapies and therapeutic intervention to follow-up in prison, and outside of the facility.

The shift began in the early nineteen nineties when institutions seemed to take a shift from those focused onto medical conditions, to those focusing on criminally focused systems.

It is never-ending cycles that occurs with the mentally ill being unable to recognize the disease and therefore are unable to hold a job, and are unable to seek the assistance that they require. As an end-point, they result to drastic measures as a way to live, or to earn a living which results most often in a prison term, or sentence.

The conditions in which many prisoners are kept are detrimental to therapies being offered to cure or treat any mental health illnesses. Whether the prisoners are available for counseling, yet there are no counselors available - or they are being treated with the wrong medication or a snap diagnosis that could be incorrect, these conditions create heightened symptoms - and many prison conditions can create heightened symptoms, creating a worsening condition in the prisoner.

The current mental health system comes with good intentions to treat those with mental illnesses but we are just ill equipped to do so. Up to twenty five percent of the prison population is mentally ill, and up to ten percent are currently suffering from a mental condition. Many of these prisoners have spent time under the care of a psychiatrist or in a mental hospital - the path that we need to take is to equip our prisons with additional resources, and the ability to diagnose, and treat - in house.