June 2004

Mental Health in the House of Corrections

The Correctional Association's two-year study of mental health care in New York State prisons which involved 22 visits to 20 correctional facilities, survey interviews with over 400 inmates on the mental health caseload and focus groups with correction officers, mental health staff and prison administrators' reveals both systemic problems and service deficiencies as well as some model programs. Specifically, the prison system's sole psychiatric hospital has not been expanded since it opened in 1980, despite a tripling in the inmate population since that time. System-wide, staff and treatment beds have not kept pace with the increasing volume and severity of mental illness among incoming inmates. Model programs exist within the system, notably the 11 residential Intermediate Care Programs for victim-prone inmates with chronic mental illness and the Central New York Psychiatric Center, a treatment-rich facility with a total capacity of 206 beds: 189 for state inmates and 17 for county inmates with acute mental health needs.