Disturbed Disruptive Inmate - Where Does the Bus Stop? (From Dilemmas of Punishment, P 100-115, 1986, Kenneth C Haas and Geoffrey P Alpert, eds. - See NCJ-101644)

• NCJ Number: 101646
• Author(s): H Toch
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: Waveland Press, Inc.
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Reprinted from Journal of Psychiatry and Law (Fall 1982), P 327-349

Annotation

Inmates who manifest both disruptive behavior and mental illness are frequently shuttled back and forth between prisons and mental health facilities. Appropriate stable settings must be found for these inmates.

Abstract

When prison officials observe that disruptive inmates have symptoms of emotional disturbance, such as self-mutilation and hallucinations, they are sent to psychiatric facilities. Psychiatric facilities, which prefer not to deal with acting-out patients who resist treatment, frequently classify the inmates as having character disorders not amenable to mental health treatment. They are then sent back to prison. Psychiatric staff may also produce a remission of psychotic symptoms with drugs and send the offender back to prison, where the drugs are discontinued and the disruptive symptoms re-emerge. Disturbed disruptive inmates, therefore, have case histories of multiple institutional placements because no institution is able or willing to deal with their behaviors. Both prison and psychiatric staff must look beyond the management problems posed by such persons and address the underlying reasons for their behavior. Appropriate settings must be devised so they will not continue to be shuttled back and forth between inappropriate settings. 19 footnotes.