Mentally ill filling Aussie prisons: chaplain
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Mentally ill filling Aussie prisons: chaplain*
September 17, 2006 04:09pm
Article from: AAP
AUSTRALIA - PEOPLE who in previous decades were housed in asylums and
mental institutions are now filling the nation's jails, says a Melbourne
prison chaplain.
Joe Caddy, has been chaplin to Melbourne's men's prisons for five
years, says "prisons are becoming the new mental health institutions".
"We did well a decade or so ago to deinstitutionalise mental health, but
we are reinstitutionalising these same people into a prison system," he
said in Melbourne today.
"At least in the old days they were patients but now they are prisoners."
Caddy estimates that up to 80 per cent of the inmates he deals with
have mental health issues that require treatment - ranging from anxiety
and depression through to schizophrenia.
He is calling for a large chunk of the $1.8 billion the Federal
Government has pledged to address the nation's mental health crisis to
be directed to new initiatives and reform of the justice systems.
Caddy said Australia's prison population, which has surged 45 per cent
in the last decade, must be assessed and adequate treatment provided to
those inmates found to be suffering mental health problems.
More community-based acute care facilities were also needed, he said,
while judges should also be given new sentencing powers to order treatment.
"Judges need a much broader and well-resourced array of sentencing
options that are not just prison, but mental health treatment options",
Caddy said.
More community-based support programs were also needed to help the
mentally ill before they went on to commit crimes, he said.
Caddy said the report showed current mental health policies and systems
were failing some of the most vulnerable Australians.
People with mental health problems who were ignored in the community
could end up being a danger to themselves as well as others, he said.
But by putting them in prison, the safety of the community was further
compromised as these unwell people established criminal contacts and
learned criminal behaviours, he said.