Serving Mentally Ill Prison Populations

Assignment 2: LASA 1—Serving Mentally Ill Prison Populations

Deinstitutionalization has led to increased numbers of homeless and has had other unintended consequences. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, up to 40 percent of mentally ill people have become involved in the criminal justice system. In an effort to address the traditional lack of sufficient mental healthcare in jails and prisons, mental health courts have been established, leading to decreased jail time and improved provisions of psychiatric services for mentally ill prisoners (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1993).

You can read more about this at the link below:

• Almquist, L., & Dodd, E. (2009). Mental health courts: A guide to research-informed policy and practice. NY, NY: Council of State Governments Justice Center. Retrieved from https://www.bja.gov/Publications/CSG_MHC_Research.pdf
• National Alliance on Mental Illness. (1993). A guide to mental illness and the criminal justice system: A systems guide for families and consumers. Retrieved from
  http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NAMILand
  /CJguidetomentalillnessandcjsystem.pdf

Use the Argosy University online library resources, the Internet, and your textbook to examine the roles that mental health workers play in the provision of services to mentally ill populations in jails and prisons. Find at least two research articles that evaluate the success of mental health service programs for mentally ill populations in prisons. Based on your research, respond to the following:

• What are the services provided by mental health courts?
• How do these services benefit the prisoners? How do these compare to the services already available through the existing criminal justice system?
• Do the research findings support the establishment of more mental health service programs to imprisoned mentally ill populations? What can be done to improve these services further?

Submit your analysis in Word format. The body of your paper (not including the title page or references page) should be at least 4-5 pages. Format your paper according to current standards of APA style and include an APA-style title page, a running head, and a references page. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

Almquist, L., & Dodd, E. (2009). Mental health courts: A guide to research-informed policy and practice. NY, NY: Council of State Governments Justice Center. Retrieved from http://www.bja.gov/pdf/CSG_MHC_Research.pdf

National Alliance on Mental Illness. (1993). A guide to mental illness and the criminal justice system: A systems guide for families and consumers. Retrieved from http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NAMILand
/CJguidetomentalillnessandcjsystem.pdf