Prisons and Mental Health: Failures of the System

For several years now, correctional agencies have been facing the problem of inmates with serious mental disorders. Caring for this population faces many difficulties, which have been analyzed in a number of correctional institutions in Quebec. What emerges is that despite repeated exposure to this group’s vulnerability, inmates with mental conditions find themselves even more entrapped in control and dependency than ordinary inmates. Ignored, forgotten, treated like children, these inmates find themselves in an extremely precarious situation. With their troubles rarely detected, a want of resources and adequate facilities, the highest level of care this population receives consists in drug delivery. This further aggravates the isolation and exclusion to which every confined population is subjected.