Prison Mental Healthcare

SPECIAL HOUSING UNITS AND MENTAL ILLNESS

Inmates with mental illness are disproportionately represented in disciplinary segregation, or special housing units (SHU), where they sometimes languish for several years and where their mental status often deteriorates, resulting in high rates of hospitalization, self-harm and suicide.

To help address these issues, in early 2008 the CA helped secure a law, the Special Housing Unit (SHU) Exclusion Law, mandating appropriate treatment of inmates with mental illness who are being disciplined in prison. The law will be fully implemented in 2011 and will impose minimum standards of care within prison mental health units and requires DOCS to divert seriously mentally ill inmates from disciplinary confinement to residential mental health units in the prisons.

In response to the governor’s proposal in 2009 that the SHU Exclusion Law be delayed, PVP submitted testimony to the Senate opposing that action. Fortunately, the strong voices of the advocates were heard and the legislature rejected any modifications to the law.

[read more about the SHU Bill victory here] [download official testimony]