Due to lack of funding from local and state government, mental health facilities have been shutting down across the country with no alternatives in place to continue the needed services. The mental health community is under-funded and unavailable to those with mental illness. According to Jamie Fellner, director of the Program of Human Rights Watch, “Unless you are wealthy, it can be next to impossible to receive mental health services in the community,” adding that “many prisoners might never have ended up behind bars if publicly funded treatment had been available.”

And, once they're in prison, people with mental health needs face a variety of issues - from abuse to lack of proper treatment to confinement.

Other prisoners often take advantage of inmates with psychiatric needs.

The Human Rights Watch report includes documentation of prisoners with mental illness being picked on, physically or sexually abused, and manipulated by other inmates.

Reports of rape and the barter of sex for commissary items such as cigarettes and coffee are common in facilities with deficient mental health services.

Also, inmates with mental illness are often times punished when they shouldn't be. People in prison sometimes display symptoms related to their mental illness such as self mutilation, noise and non-compliance. Yes, inmates that simply act out and disobey rules need to be punished. But, if the prisoner is acting out due to their mental illness, they should receive the proper care rather than be punished. Most correctional staff lack the training needed to distinguish between someone acting out due to a mental illness and a prisoner who is simply violating order.

Then there is the matter of confinement. Currently, it's estimated that there are more than 700 prisoners with psychiatric disabilities suffering in the prisons' special housing units (SHUs).

While in SHU's, inmates are three times more likely to commit suicide then the general prison population.

According to the Correctional Association survey of 162 prisoners, inmates with mental illness reported an average disciplinary confinement sentence of 38 months #- seven times longer than what SHU inmates generally receive.

Both the New York State Assembly and the Senate have passed legislation to end the practice of confining people with psychiatric disabilities in SHUs, a practice already banned in other states such as California, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey and Texas. The legislation would also provide training to correctional staff to ensure reform and rehabilitation. But, this “SHU Bill” has been sent back to revise language and better clarify the scale and cost of the proposal.

Although the passage of the SHU bill would be a good start, it only addresses part of the problem. There are still the issues of properly funding community mental health services and addressing prisoner abuse. Gov. Spitzer has added $60 million to the mental health and corrections budget but advocates want to see more.

And, Jeff Keller, deputy director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-New York State (NAMI-NYS) states, “While the recent settlement allows for a lot more accountability in how people are treated, they (prisoners with mental illness) are still being tortured. We do not support torture with counseling.”

There is clearly a lot more work that needs to be done.

Amanda Derby is the housing advocate for Options for Independence. She can be reached at 255-3447.