NCJ Number
80031
Journal
Prison Journal Volume: 61 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring/Summer 1981) Pages: 43-54
Date Published
1981
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the jail crisis phenomenon of jail inmates from a clinical perspective using the most recent psychiatric criteria.
Abstract
The transient nature of holding jail environments is more likely to disrupt the stability of the inmate's assumptive world, leading to psychological ambiguity, than the environment of a prison housing sentenced offenders. Rash behavior, such as suicide, jailbreak, physical assault, and sexual aggressiveness, is likely to occur in holding jails unless preventive treatment or crisis intervention is used with inmates. Clinical perspectives on disruptive jail behavior are discussed through an overview of the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III, 1980) published by the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM-III provides that each case be assessed on each of five axes, each of which refers to a different class of behaviorally relevant information: (1) clinical syndromes (psychoses and neuroses--organic or functional), (2) personality disorders and specific developmental disorders, (3) physical (not organic) disorders and conditions, (4) severity of psychosocial stressors, and (5) highest level of adaptive functioning during the past year. The relevance of the various aspects of each of these axes to jail crises phenomenon is discussed. Chemotherapy, crisis intervention, and adjustment counseling are discussed as means of dealing with disruptive jail behavior. The reference and bibliography contain 30 listings.