People with Mental Health Conditions in Corrections

"An extensive data analysis coupled with over 50 in-person interviews with local and state leaders led to the identification of key recommendations for reducing the number of people with behavioral health disorders cycling in and out of jail." Sections of this report include: background; summary of

"The purpose of this paper is to cast a vision for the next generation of behavioral health and criminal justice interventions by presenting a set of empirically informed individual and environmental factors that directly and indirectly contribute to criminal justice involvement for individuals with

This is an excellent article explaining how the values and social structures of a U.S. prison affect a correctional officer's discretionary responses to situations involving mentally ill inmates. Sections of this article cover: prisons as local moral worlds and the construction of illness categories

This article is one of the first to examine the relationship between criminal activity and the influence on it over time by mental illness. The authors discuss: how often mentally ill offenders commit crimes motivated by psychiatric symptoms; legal and research definitions of direct relationships

This brief "discusses an effort in Texas to divert youth with suspected mental health needs away from juvenile justice processing. The Front-End Diversion Initiative (FEDI) uses specialized juvenile probation officers to link these youth and their families to community services and divert these

"In this paper, we [the authors] explore the use of mental health peer support services as one way to support recovery, improve continuity of care, and reduce recidivism for inmates with mental illness during the re-entry process. We present a successful peer support re-entry program model

"This report, modeled on promising approaches in the mental health field to people experiencing a first episode of psychosis, outlines a new integrated framework that encourages the mental health and criminal justice fields to collaborate on developing programs based on early intervention, an

"This report introduces essential elements for responding to people with mental illnesses at the pretrial stage, including decisions about pretrial release and diversion. These elements encourage data collection not only to help individual communities, but also for future researchers who are

This "background analysis examines how individuals with mental illness are processed and treated in the criminal justice system and discusses the implications of insufficient or inadequate care for these individuals. In particular, the main objectives of this paper are to review current practice in

"The development of culturally responsive clinical skills is vital to the effectiveness of behavioral health services. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), cultural competence “refers to the ability to honor and respect the beliefs, languages, interpersonal styles

This report is a great introduction to strategies for treating offenders with serious mental illness (i.e., schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, or major depression) in jails, prisons, forensic hospitals, or community reentry programs. The researchers “identified some promising

“Prisons and jails have become America’s “new asylums”: The number of individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails now exceeds the number in state psychiatric hospitals tenfold. Most of the mentally ill individuals in prisons and jails would have been treated in the state psychiatric

"[H]istorical , legal, and ethical issues relevant to dealing with mental illness in the field of corrections" are discussed (p. iii). Chapters include: introduction; screening and assessment; mental health and substance abuse treatment; use of seclusion, segregation, and restraints; suicide