Mental Health Issues in the Criminal Justice System

Discover how to best provide effective mental health treatments for criminal offenders

Prisons and jails are increasingly being filled with inmates who suffer from mental illness and need treatment. Mental Health Issues in the Criminal Justice System examines a wide range of the latest research and learned perspectives focusing on the intersection of mental health services and the criminal justice system. Top experts and academics discuss mental health treatment, its availability, it effectiveness, and just how cost effective it truly is to treat those in prisons and jails. This valuable text provides a broad interdisciplinary view of the topic and presents important qualitative and quantitative research of specific topics, such as the effectiveness of prisoner representatives, the causal link between incarceration and mental illness, and the expanding rates of correctional offenders with mental illness.

Mental Health Issues in the Criminal Justice System discusses a wide range of pertinent topics focusing on the viability and functioning of mental health treatment models in prisons and jails. Recommendations on desired correctional mental health programs are presented, along with strategies to better provide therapeutic services. Respected experts provide practical suggestions on research that needs to be addressed in the future. The book is extensively referenced and includes several tables and figures to clearly present data.

Other topics in Mental Health Issues in the Criminal Justice System include:

• the prevalence of mental illness in jails and prisons―and the duty society has to provide appropriate mental health treatment
• three components critical to the success of jail diversion programs
• ethics of doing research on prisoners
• an extended care community corrections model
• the experience of mitigation experts in first degree murder cases in the penalty phase of the trial
• the criminalization of the mentally ill because of fragmentation of mental health services
• correctional offenders with mental illness (OMIs)―and their differences from the general offender population
• the role of the helping alliance in juvenile probation settings
• and much more!

Mental Health Issues in the Criminal Justice System is a timely, insightful text for anyone in the criminal justice or mental health fields, educators, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduate students.

Daniel W. Phillips III PhD is associate professor of sociology and criminal justice and the criminal justice program coordinator at Lindsey Wilson College.