Monday, July 12, 2004

La Crosse County inmates say they're not getting prescriptions (Wisconsin)
AP story in the Duluth News Tribune - "Inmates at the La Crosse County jail say they are not receiving needed medications for mental health and other medical conditions since the jail's medical services were privatized. La Crosse County hired Health Professionals Limited, a Peoria, Ill.-based provider of medical services to jails and prisons, to take over medical operations at the jail starting this January. Before that, county Health Department nurses and a local doctor ran the jail infirmary..."  
  

New law could fill jails with homeless, some say
Miami Herald story reprinted at PsycPORT on a law signed by Gov. Jeb Bush last month that "requires judges to sentence Floridians with at least five arrests in a 12-month period to six months in a county jail or residential treatment facility. Jacksonville legislators and the Duval County sheriff sought the bill as a way of cleaning up the streets before the 2005 Super Bowl. But experts fear the change in state law, together with an already steep decline in funding for psychiatric services, could swell the jails with more mentally ill inmates..."  
  

Many Youths Reported Held Awaiting Mental Help
July 8 New York Times story - "Congressional investigators said Wednesday that 15,000 children with psychiatric disorders were improperly incarcerated last year because no mental health services were available. The figures were compiled by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Government Reform in the first such nationwide survey of juvenile detention centers..." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free]. See also the press release from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Thousands of Children with Mental Illness Warehoused in Juvenile Detention Centers Awaiting Mental Health Services and other resources at the Bazelon site, including testimony by Tammy Seltzer and an open letter to Congress signed by more than 130 national and state advocacy groups. The Congressional investigators' full report is also available online in Adobe Acrobat format.