Psychiatry in Prisons provides a comprehensive overview of the history, problems and development of psychiatric health care in prisons. It tackles a broad range of issues, from familiar mental health issues such as substance misuse, self-injury and health screening to complex legal, moral and philosophical dilemmas.

“A haunting and harrowing indictment . . . [a] significant achievement.” —The New York Times Book Review L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist * New York Times Book Review Paperback Row * Time Best New Books July 2020 Waiting for an Echo is a riveting, rarely seen glimpse into American jails and prisons. It is also a damning account of policies that have criminalized mental illness, shifting large numbers of people who belong in therapeutic settings into punitive ones. Dr. Christine Montross has spent her career treating the most severely ill psychiatric patients. This expertise—the mind in crisis—has enabled her to reckon with the human stories behind mass incarceration. A father attempting to weigh the impossible calculus of a plea bargain. A bright young woman whose life is derailed by addiction. Boys in a juvenile detention facility who, desperate for human connection, invent a way to communicate with one another from cell to cell. Overextended doctors and correctional officers who strive to provide care and security in environments riddled with danger. Our methods of incarceration take away not only freedom but also selfhood and soundness of mind. In a nation where 95 percent of all inmates are released from prison and return to our communities, this is a practice that punishes us all.

This book examines how the prison environment, architecture and culture can affect mental health as well as determine both the type and delivery of mental health services. It also discusses how non-medical practices, such as peer support and prison education programs, offer the possibility of transformative practice and support. By drawing on international contributions, it furthermore demonstrates how mental health in prisons is affected by wider socio-economic and cultural factors, and how in recent years neo-liberalism has abandoned, criminalised and contained large numbers of the world’s most marginalised and vulnerable populations. Overall, this collection challenges the dominant narrative of individualism by focusing instead on the relationship between structural inequalities, suffering, survival and punishment. Chapter 2 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

This textbook brings together leading experts to provide a comprehensive and practical review of common clinical, organisational, and ethical issues in correctional psychiatry.

The first practical, clinical guidebook on correctional mental health care that uses hypothetical case vignettes to illustrate important points, the "Handbook of Correctional Mental Health" is designed to assist mental health professionals in providing effective care to inmates and understanding both the unique living environment and stressors faced by inmates in a variety of correctional settings and the legal context in which they provide that care. Each of 12 fascinating chapters written by 26 recognized experts is clearly organized by overview, clinical case vignette, and key summary points, following the individual from arrest through probation. The "Handbook of Correctional Mental Health" combines basic background information for providers new to the world of corrections with more advanced material for seasoned correctional providers, covering topics such as medication management, malingering, developmentally disabled inmates, female inmates, and the complex legal issues regarding the unique and separate constitutional standard of care within correctional settings. Incorporating various viewpoints on potentially controversial issues and including extensive legal and clinical references that reflect current trends in correctional psychiatry, the "Handbook of Correctional Mental Health" has a broad multidisciplinary scope and will appeal to psychiatrists and psychologists, social workers, nurses, attorneys and judges, and correctional officers and administrators.

An urgent exposé of the mental health crisis in our courts, jails, and prisons America has made mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital. As many as half of all people in America's jails and prisons have a psychiatric disorder. One in four fatal police shootings involves a person with such disorders. In this revelatory book, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice system to show how and why it has become a warehouse where inmates are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make them sicker. Through intimate stories of people in the system and those trying to fix it, Roth reveals the hidden forces behind this crisis and suggests how a fairer and more humane approach might look. Insane is a galvanizing wake-up call for criminal justice reformers and anyone concerned about the plight of our most vulnerable.

The 15 years since publication of the second edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s task force report on psychiatric services in correctional facilities have seen increasing rates of incarceration of mentally ill individuals, continuing criminalization of substance use disorders, and a lack of accessible and appropriate care in the community. The purpose of the new edition, Psychiatric Services in Correctional Facilities, and the aim of the work group that authored it over many years of research, dialogue, and development, is to provide leadership in addressing the needs of the often disenfranchised population of the incarcerated and to provide guidance to mental health clinicians working in correctional settings. Urging an expanded role in leadership and advocacy, the work group members present the foundational principles that apply to providing care in correctional facilities, outline the basic types of services that should be provided, and apply the principles and guidelines previously established to specific disorders, patient populations, treatment modalities, and special needs. Working with these patients and in these settings presents particular challenges that clinicians are unlikely to have encountered elsewhere in practice, such as the use of seclusion and restraint and administrative issues. Psychiatric Services in Correctional Facilities provides critical guidance and support for mental health professionals operating in this often frustrating environment, enabling them to provide both effective treatment and informed advocacy for their patients.