When Donkeys Fly - A Zen Perspective on Dealing With the Problem of the Mentally Disturbed Jail Inmate (From Sneaking Inmates Down the Alley, P 149-166, 1986, David B Kalinich and John Klofas, eds. - See NCJ-103688)

• NCJ Number: 103698
• Author(s): J J Gibbs
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Charles C. Thomas
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper presented at Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Meeting, Las Vegas, 1985.

Annotation

Jail staff can help reduce mental illness symptoms in jail inmates by providing a human services environment that meets rather than aggravates the needs of mentally ill persons.

Abstract

Zen maintains that the dispelling of illusions that create static and limiting views of a situation can stimulate creativity and adaptability. An illusion held by many jail administrators is that mental illness is a given defect in certain individuals and that these persons must be managed by mental health professionals rather than jail staff. This illusion will only frustrate jail managers, because they can neither afford to pay mental health professionals to treat jail inmates nor expect that mentally ill persons will be diverted to mental health facilities rather than placed in jails. The dispelling of the illusion comes with the recognition of empirical evidence which shows that the jail environment can aggravate or relieve mental illness symptoms. Jail management problems with the mentally ill inmate can be relieved by involving jail custodial and treatment staff in action-research programs that apply a human services milieu to the jail environment so as to determine how the jail environment can be designed to mitigate rather than aggravate mental illness symptoms. 10 references.