PF Commentary: Mental Health in Prison

Bedlam

By Mark Earley\|Published Date: June 26, 2009 In the sixteenth century, London's mentally ill were often kept at Bethlem Royal Hospital. The conditions inside the hospital were notoriously poor. Patients were often chained to the floor, and the noise was so great that Bethlem was more likely to drive a man crazy than to cure him.
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The Evidence for Alternatives to Incarceration

A broken mind is the worst kind of prison. Many mentally ill offenders don't just face lengthy terms behind iron bars. They also experience years of imprisonment in a mind wracked with disease. An ill man named Nathaniel, who cycled through New York's prison system for 15 years without receiving treatment, knew the despair of these two kinds of bondage. His namesake, the Nathaniel Project, now seeks to deliver offenders like him from both.

The Evidence for Offender Mental Health Programs

Pushing mentally ill offenders back into society with forty bucks and a bus ticket just doesn't cut it. Far too often, these people get lost, have no medication, wind up living in a homeless shelter, and are psychotic again in a month - threatening both themselves and the community around them. Thankfully, William Jones did not experience this painful cycle. That's because staff from the state of Washington's Dangerous Mentally Ill Offender program (DMIO) noticed his case and enrolled him in the services and intensive case management the program provides.