Laura
07-20-2010, 07:27 AM
This comes as no surprise to someone who shared a class with a kid who was regarded as mentally ill, only to find out that having been in and out of jail a few times, he is now serving 15 to life. His old classmates would have told the criminal justice system that he belonged in the mental health system...
[NYAPRS Enews] UPI: Jails Are Top Mental Health Institutions
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 07:37:14 -0400
UPI: Jails Are Top Mental Health Institutions
NYAPRS Note: Recognizing that the big city jails are our most populous mental health institutions, the International Association for Forensic and Correctional Psychology has issued recommendations they say will improve care and reduce local governmental liability to litigation. An example of such litigation is in the article that follows detailing a settlement in New York’s Erie County (Buffalo) requiring increased mental health staff and suicide prevention protocols.
Jails Are Top Mental Health Institutions
UPI-Health News 7/12/10 http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/07/12/Jails-are-top-mental-health-institutions/UPI-276 21278982109/
LOS ANGELES, July 12 (UPI) -- New York's Riker's Island, Chicago's Cook County Jail and the Los Angeles County Jail are the largest mental health institutions in the nation, a study found.
Members of the International Association for Forensic and Correctional Psychology say 15% of the inmates of those three jails are mentally ill, making penal institutions -- not hospitals -- the three largest U.S. mental health institutions.
The association charged a committee to revise their psychological standards for jails, prisons, correctional facilities and agencies, which were first published in 1980.
Committee members say the revised standards, published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior, will benefit institutional security and help integrate former inmates back into the community, and may reduce litigation due to inadequate correctional mental health services.
"Offenders, mentally ill or not, entrusted to the custody of correctional facilities and agencies, benefit in a number of ways from the highest quality of rehabilitative and mental health services," committee chair Richard Althouse says in a statement.
Althouse and colleagues hope the revised standards, which include organizational policies and ethical principles to govern areas such as intake, staffing, suicide prevention and intervention, keeping records and research will guide administrators and clinicians in providing optimal mental health services.
_____________________________________________
$290,000 Approved For Upgrading Of Jail Personnel
County Acts To Comply On Justice Dept. Issues
By Matthew Spina Buffalo News 7/9/10 http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/07/09/1107785/290000-approved-for-upgrading.html
Erie County will spend $290,000 this year to hire more medical and mental health staff for the county Holding Center and to hire a new jail official to implement the upgrades ordered under the recent settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.
County lawmakers approved the spending Thursday in a series of budget maneuvers that finance the jobs through December. The posts will need new outlays for 2011 and beyond.
The settlement signed last month addressed the most pressing aspect of the Justice Department's lawsuit against Erie County's jail management team — the alleged indifference to Holding Center suicides.
Holding Center inmates take their own lives at almost five times the national average for local jails, according to a Justice Department consultant. Erie County officials dispute the calculation because, they assert, it does not account for the Holding Center's busy nature. The jail receives more than 20,000 defendants a year.
Among the key Justice Department requirements: Erie County will hire a deputy jail superintendent whose only mission will be to ensure the deployment of many specific suicide-prevention measures.
Some upgrades are under way, such as retrofitting cell fixtures so they can't support nooses. The agreement also requires the nursing staff to assess inmates in the acute detoxification unit every eight hours, and for Erie County to implement a detoxification training program for the jail's mental health professionals and staff.
Thomas A. Beilein, the state Commission of Correction chairman whose agency sued Erie County over its Holding Center, has called Erie County's jail system the most troubled county system in the state
A few Legislature Democrats bristled at being forced to swiftly act on the new spending rather than being given a week to examine the matters in a committee. But the full Legislature unanimously approved the new job, and agreed to spend $105,000 to hire five new health professionals to work in the Holding Center.
They also allocated $120,000,in state grant money, to pay four more forensic mental health professionals to supplement the forensic mental health staff at the Holding Center and Correctional Facility.
[NYAPRS Enews] UPI: Jails Are Top Mental Health Institutions
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 07:37:14 -0400
UPI: Jails Are Top Mental Health Institutions
NYAPRS Note: Recognizing that the big city jails are our most populous mental health institutions, the International Association for Forensic and Correctional Psychology has issued recommendations they say will improve care and reduce local governmental liability to litigation. An example of such litigation is in the article that follows detailing a settlement in New York’s Erie County (Buffalo) requiring increased mental health staff and suicide prevention protocols.
Jails Are Top Mental Health Institutions
UPI-Health News 7/12/10 http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/07/12/Jails-are-top-mental-health-institutions/UPI-276 21278982109/
LOS ANGELES, July 12 (UPI) -- New York's Riker's Island, Chicago's Cook County Jail and the Los Angeles County Jail are the largest mental health institutions in the nation, a study found.
Members of the International Association for Forensic and Correctional Psychology say 15% of the inmates of those three jails are mentally ill, making penal institutions -- not hospitals -- the three largest U.S. mental health institutions.
The association charged a committee to revise their psychological standards for jails, prisons, correctional facilities and agencies, which were first published in 1980.
Committee members say the revised standards, published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior, will benefit institutional security and help integrate former inmates back into the community, and may reduce litigation due to inadequate correctional mental health services.
"Offenders, mentally ill or not, entrusted to the custody of correctional facilities and agencies, benefit in a number of ways from the highest quality of rehabilitative and mental health services," committee chair Richard Althouse says in a statement.
Althouse and colleagues hope the revised standards, which include organizational policies and ethical principles to govern areas such as intake, staffing, suicide prevention and intervention, keeping records and research will guide administrators and clinicians in providing optimal mental health services.
_____________________________________________
$290,000 Approved For Upgrading Of Jail Personnel
County Acts To Comply On Justice Dept. Issues
By Matthew Spina Buffalo News 7/9/10 http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/07/09/1107785/290000-approved-for-upgrading.html
Erie County will spend $290,000 this year to hire more medical and mental health staff for the county Holding Center and to hire a new jail official to implement the upgrades ordered under the recent settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.
County lawmakers approved the spending Thursday in a series of budget maneuvers that finance the jobs through December. The posts will need new outlays for 2011 and beyond.
The settlement signed last month addressed the most pressing aspect of the Justice Department's lawsuit against Erie County's jail management team — the alleged indifference to Holding Center suicides.
Holding Center inmates take their own lives at almost five times the national average for local jails, according to a Justice Department consultant. Erie County officials dispute the calculation because, they assert, it does not account for the Holding Center's busy nature. The jail receives more than 20,000 defendants a year.
Among the key Justice Department requirements: Erie County will hire a deputy jail superintendent whose only mission will be to ensure the deployment of many specific suicide-prevention measures.
Some upgrades are under way, such as retrofitting cell fixtures so they can't support nooses. The agreement also requires the nursing staff to assess inmates in the acute detoxification unit every eight hours, and for Erie County to implement a detoxification training program for the jail's mental health professionals and staff.
Thomas A. Beilein, the state Commission of Correction chairman whose agency sued Erie County over its Holding Center, has called Erie County's jail system the most troubled county system in the state
A few Legislature Democrats bristled at being forced to swiftly act on the new spending rather than being given a week to examine the matters in a committee. But the full Legislature unanimously approved the new job, and agreed to spend $105,000 to hire five new health professionals to work in the Holding Center.
They also allocated $120,000,in state grant money, to pay four more forensic mental health professionals to supplement the forensic mental health staff at the Holding Center and Correctional Facility.