Providing Mental Health Services to Jail Inmates - Legal Perspectives (From Mental Health Services in Local Jails - Report of a Special National Workshop, P 69-99, 1982, Christopher S Dunn and Henry J Steadman, ed. See NCJ-85919)

• NCJ Number: 85922
• Author(s): R G Singer
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 31 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Available on microfiche as NCJ-85919

Annotation

This discussion asserts that the law is beginning to recognize the duty of the State and the sheriff to supply mental health services to prisoners who need them but proposes that the Government assume ultimate legal liability for incarcerated persons who suffer psychological harm as a result of being jailed.

Abstract

In accord with national standards and evolving case law, jails must provide sufficient personnel, trained in both the detection and treatment of mental illness to be present at all times. Otherwise, the sheriff will be liable if the prisoner injures himself or others. Given the present law, in which the Government generally refuses to accept responsibility for such injuries, this is probably the best solution. But far preferable would be a legal system allowing temporary transfers of inmates to mental health centers as soon as mental illness is diagnosed and imposing upon the Government, as the ultimately responsible authority, liability for those injuries occurring as a result of the failure of fallible staff, and without the necessity of having to demonstrate negligence. The rationale for this proposal is that persons do not seek the stress of jail, even those who voluntarily commit crimes, and that the legal system should respond in affirmative and remedial ways, to solve that dilemma. A total of 110 footnotes are provided. (Author abstract modified)