When you screen inmates at intake, you know right away what treatments, housing, and programming will be most effective for each individual, and you can make decisions that appropriately allocate resources and keep everyone safe.
Placement in restrictive housing is often an attempt to protect inmates, but it can have the opposite effect, particularly for those who suffer from mental illness.
While there is no validated intake screener available today, experts agree that there are eight key factors that should be included in an effective suicide screening at intake.
We can use assessment tools not only to appropriately place inmates with mental illnesses, but also those around them.
We’ve been working with jails across the country for over three decades, and we’ve seen the shifts and changes over time. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for jails, but a few things are clear.
What is the jail’s role in treatment and intervention? What’s best for individuals, communities, and public safety?
Constant vigilance of restrictive housing procedures and practices is necessary. Building an ongoing review process to look at risk conditions and determine what’s changed is needed.
One of the primary ways jails can limit their liability, accurately classify inmates, and efficiently handle the influx of inmates is by implementing a good initial classification process.
Those of us who work in jails or prisons don’t need research studies to tell us what we already know: Mental illness in the justice system is a serious problem. And we’re not equipped to fix it.
In this episode Dr. Tim Brennan discusses the science behind why inmate classification works, three fundamental parts of the decision-making process in criminal justice and more.
