The news has been filled lately with stories of violence within correctional facilities, often involving prisoners or detainees who are alleged to have mental illness. The California prison system recently announced an initiative to reduce the use of force against mentally ill prisoners and to require correctional officers to consider an inmate’s mental health status prior to any use of force.
This is an excellent initiative, and close collaboration between security and mental health services is crucial for effective treatment of some mentally ill offenders.
Dr. Annette Hanson
However, this would be a good time to remember that not all seriously mentally ill prisoners are disruptive and that violence is a behavior rather than a diagnostic criterion. The nonsymptomatic causes of violence are important to consider as well: Is the inmate defending himself from attack by more aggressive peers? Is he taking a stand and making a display of force in order to make the point that he won’t be intimidated? Is he delirious from an unrecognized or treated medical condition? Is he having a seizure, suffering from withdrawal, or medically compromised in some other way? Or is the violence instrumental, a means to an end by a sociopathic inmate who needs to enforce his chain of command or protect his prison drug distribution channels? While for some, violence may be an outward sign of psychosis, for others it’s part of the cost of doing business.
In addition to looking at violence on an individual level, we also need to consider it from an institutional perspective. Violence may be a sign that there are serious problems not only on an individual level but possibly on an institutional one as well. Increased sensitivity to the mental status of the prisoner is only one piece of the puzzle.