Introduction

Abstract

Since 1963, the promise of the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act (1963), the planned provision of community-based mental health services, and advances in psychotropic medication and treatment suggested that the mentally ill might be better managed and served in the community than in hospital (Bachrach & Lamb, 1989; Grob, 1991). While “dehospitalization” proceeds today (Geller, 2000), large numbers of individuals with mental illness also return to the community from correctional custody and bring with them complicated clinical profiles and service needs (Laberge & Morin, 1995; Rice & Harris, 1997; Lamb & Weinberger, 1998; Lamb et al., 1999). An increasing awareness of this phenomenon has resulted in estimates that prisons contain four to five times the rate of persons with mental illness found in the community (Morris & Tonry, 1990; Regier et al., 1990; Morris et al., 1997; Rice & Harris, 1997; Wolff et al., 1997). According to the 2000 Prison Census, about 150,900 or 1 in 10 state inmates were in mental health programs; 114,400 or 1 in 13 were receiving psychotropic medication; and 18,900 or 1 in 80 were in 24-hour psychiatric care (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000). While the recent estimates suggest that approximately 16% of all those incarcerated in state prisons (16% of all males and 24%of all females) have some sort of mental illness (Ditton, 1999), a meta-analysis examining the prevalence of mental disorder with a narrow criterion found that 10% of male and 18% of female inmates had an Axis I major mental disorder of thought or mood (Pinta, 2001).

Citation

Hartwell, S. (2005), "Introduction", Hartwell, S.W. (Ed.) The Organizational Response to Persons with Mental Illness Involved with the Criminal Justice System (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. xi-xiii. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0196-1152(05)12011-0