Criminal Justice and Mental Health by Jada Hector & David Khey

Author:Jada Hector & David Khey
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

5.1.3 Common Problems

As the Stepping Up Initiative prepared to launch, its advertising campaign to counties and parishes identified the following commonplace problems in jails across the United States: (1) prevalence of serious mental illness was three to six times higher in jails relative to the general population, (2) three out of four of these individuals have co-occurring disorders, (3) once in jail, these individuals tend to experience longer stays in jail relative to individuals without mental illness, and (4) these individuals are at a much higher risk of recidivism upon release relative to individuals without mental illness (Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2014; Haneberg, Fabelo, Osher, & Thompson, 2017). Certainly, this list is not exhaustive, but it captures the failing logic of the current systems in place across the country—it depicts a system that has recurring failures as an intervention for people with mental illness. The analogy to a revolving door has become apt.

Perhaps the systemic failure is most punctuated by an examination of suicide ideation, attempts, and completions in jails; as indicated earlier in this text, the risk of suicide tends to be the highest in jails. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, suicides among jail inmates have been on the rise, with the most current rate being 46 per 100,000 inmates as of 2013 (Noonan, 2015). Compare this to a national average of roughly 12 per 100,000, the difference in jails is about four times higher than the general population (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). Existing data on suicide ideation and attempts among jail inmates is scant and much older. However, the underlying patterns of crisis still emerge.

One of the first briefs coming from the Stepping Up Initiative leadership summarizes a growing body of knowledge on what, exactly, our failures are in the jail setting. It begins by outlining the changes that have occurred in services for individuals with mental illness over the last decade: a mass proliferation of specialized police response teams and programs, specialized programming to divert low-level offenders with mental illness from the mainstream justice system, broader use of specialty courts, and enhanced mental health services in jails to name a few. Even with these innovations in place, the brief describes four barriers preventing gains. First, and primarily, most locales suffer from the lack of adequate data to identify a targeted population and monitor it effectively. For example, having access to basic information such as the total number and identities of individuals with mental illness arrested and who currently in the local jail is important. Additional relevant information about this population is also crucial, such as the length of stay in jail, bond status, whether individuals have previously received treatment or are currently being treated, and the ability to follow rearrest. Without adequate data tools, developing a system-wide response to any underlying problem becomes problematic. Second, many programs that are in place lack an evidence-based services , tools, and programming, and critically, “community-based behavioral health-care providers are rarely familiar with (or

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