September 20, 2009
Study: Poor mental health treatment contribues to California inmate suicides
Suicide rates inside California's prison system continue to exceed national rates, partly because state prison officials provide inadequate treatment, intervention and assessment of troubled inmates, a new report concludes.
The report, filed in federal court as part of a pending suit against the state seeking to remedy unconstitutional mental health care for prisoners, studied all 34 inmate suicides from 2007 and found some who should have been placed under mental health care screening but were not and cases where cardiopulmonary resuscitation was not performed quickly enough or properly.
Some inmates assessed as having "severe" suicide risks were not handled properly, and documentation on some of the suicides was so sloppy that required reporting on them still has not been completed, the study found…
LINK - SacBee.com
