The February 2012 News Round Up focuses on Mental Health treatment in the correctional setting. Lorry is joined by regular panelist Sue Smith and guest Rosanne Harmon, a Psychiatric Mental Helath Nurse Practitioner with the Oregon Department of Corrections.

In early February, MSNBC online reported on a huge jury award – $22 million – to a man held 22 months in Dona Ana County Jail in New Mexico. Most of that time he was held in solitary confinement and alleged to have been denied appropriate mental health care. http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/justice/inmate-settlement/

The second story of interest is out of Summit County Ohio where the sheriff has announced he will no longer be accepting seriously mentally ill individuals but will send them out for treatment. http://www.policeone.com/corrections/articles/5053246-Sheriff-Jail-will-no-longer-accept-mentally-ill-arrestees/

The National Sheriff’s Association published the 2010 report: More Mentally Ill Persons Are in Jails and Prisons than Hospitals: A Survey of States. http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/storage/documents/final_jails_v_hospitals_study.pdf

 

What are the issues facing correctional nurses working with the mentally ill inmate? What responses to the increase in mental illness are we seeing in the corrections community?