Canadian Prisons 'Warehousing' the Mentally Ill

A scathing report released last week by the Office of the Correctional Investigator of Canada is calling on the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) to make major changes in the way it delivers mental health treatment to the prisoners within its custody. According to this report, Canada’s penitentiaries have become nothing more than warehouses for the mentally ill, which serves neither the people they incarcerate nor the general public once they are released.

The Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA) was passed in 2004 and funded with $50 million in the years that followed. It was designed to implement a “Mental Health Strategy” into the CSC penitentiaries and ensure sufficient mental health programming and treatment. The CCRA tasked the CSC was providing inmates with “reasonable access” to mental health services. Unfortunately, this latest report shows the CSC has failed.

"Under Warrant: A Review of the Implementation of the Correctional Service of Canada’s Mental Health Strategy," shows that despite the funding and the frequently used terms “Mental Health Strategy” by the CSC, there is actually no formal strategy in place. No document outlining objectives, timelines or concrete plans exists. Instead, the system of mental health within the CSC seems to rely loosely on a number of draft quality policy documents. With no implementation document or plan, the CSC is sort of winging it when it comes to the mental health needs of federal offenders.

The needs of inmates with mental illness should not be trivialized. Those offenders are more likely to spend time in isolation, more likely to have disruptions and more likely to serve their full sentence than those without such health needs. Without programs and treatment options, their disorders can only get worse, negatively impacting them personally but also impacting the potential safety of other in the institutions in which they are housed. (Read more after the jump.)

The CSC estimates 11 percent of offenders have a mental health diagnosis at the time of admittance into the prison system and 14.5 percent have been hospitalized for psychiatric issues at some point in the past. These numbers underscore the need for comprehensive programming options.

Despite the millions in funding -- and the more than 6 years since the implementation of the CCRA -- little has been done to serve the needs of those requiring intermediate care. This level of mental health care lies somewhere in between intensive inpatient treatment for the most severe cases and primary (basic-level) mental health treatment. At the intermediate level, inmates are said to be “unable to cope on regular institutional range” and require specialized programming and interventions. Rather than setting up solutions to serve these needs, though, offenders at the intermediate level have been forced into segregation units, no doubt exacerbating their mental health problems.

The “Under Warrant” report suggests the CSC make major changes -- and quickly. It recommends a concrete mental health strategy be implemented by 2012, with official planning documents and concrete objectives, and a specific focus on the intermediate level mental health care needs. They also suggest regular independent audits of the mental health strategy and continually updated guidelines and strengthened partnerships with territories throughout Canada.

Photo Credit: seantoyer