Mass. Justice System To Shift Approach Toward Prisoners With Mental Health Issues
Elsewhere, in other psychiatric news, parents can face challenges in securing mental health services at school for their kids. And a psychology internship program faces criticism at a Wisconsin juvenile prison.
Boston Globe:
Baker Plans Overhaul In Criminal Justice System’s Handling Of Mentally Ill
Governor Charlie Baker will announce on Tuesday a substantial shift in how the state’s criminal justice system handles mentally ill people, moving the troubled Bridgewater State Hospital away from a prison model and toward a more clinical approach. The administration plans to shift mentally ill inmates convicted of state crimes out of the state prison in Bridgewater and into a separate facility, leaving behind other mentally ill inmates charged with sometimes minor crimes but not convicted. Baker would also beef up mental health services and place sharp limits on the contact that correctional officers have with inmates — contact that proved deadly in the case of 23-year-old Joshua Messier, who died in 2009 as guards wrestled him into restraints. (Sharfenberg, 9/13)
Kaiser Health News:
Parents Often Battle To Get Their Children Mental Health Services At School
On a hot summer day last month, Sydney, 15, and Laney, 8, were enjoying their last two weeks of freedom before school started. The sisters tried to do flips over a high bar at a local playground. “You’ve got to pull your hips into the bar, like you’ve got to kick up like that,” explained their mother, Selena. ... Both girls have been diagnosed with mental illnesses — Sydney with bipolar disorder and Laney with a similar illness called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. ... School has been a real challenge for them. That’s not unusual for the 1 in 5 children with a mental illness. (Gold, 9/13)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Lincoln Hills Psych Program Was In Disarray
Corrections officials scrambled to salvage a psychology internship program at the state’s troubled juvenile prison after a national accrediting agency found it was poorly supervised, records show. Visitors from the American Psychological Association found interns weren’t given enough time to do their assessments, did not understand what was expected of them, were trained by staff who were not familiar with psychological tests and sometimes were not evaluated by their bosses. (Marley, 9/12)
