Mental Health in Georgia's Prisons
by Helena Cavendish de Moura

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In Georgia, about one out of six prisoners have been diagnosed with a mental illness. Georgia's Department of Corrections has in the past come under scrutiny for its treatment of the mentally-ill. Today, despite so many positive changes, the mental health caseload continues to grow.

The Georgia Department of Corrections – following a nation-wide trend – is coping with an exponential growth in its prison population. It's a costly task for a state with an already burdened prison system – mentally-ill prisoners require highly-specialized counselors, constant therapy, and medication.

According to Dr. James de Groot, the state's Mental Health Director, Georgia is spending six and a half million dollars in psychotropic drugs alone plus the cost of hiring and training of additional psychiatrists and therapists to work in the prison system.

"We're at full capacity during the summer, we have our hands full trying to manage the crisis," says de Groot. "A lot of facilities for the mentally-ill are not air-conditioned. They can't cope with the heat and start decompensating by hurting themselves and hurting others and becoming really disorganized. So our CSU unit stays really busy during the summer."

The CSU – Crisis Stabilization Unit – is where inmates in critical mental stress are taken in.

Suicide attempts are not uncommon among some of the mentally-ill inmates as they enter the restrictive prison universe. The alarming sounds and forceful treatment can make some more defensive and can even exacerbate some of their symptoms.

Many of the inmates in Georgia's prisons are heavily medicated, and many are diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Many come from poor communities where no mental health care is available and sometimes families do not understand their relative's mental illness. A crime had to be committed in order for them to get treatment.

To groups like the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Treatment Advocacy Center, the mentally ill are actually being demonized by the criminal system. Critics believe they should be in treatment centers, not in prisons. But, as Dr. De Groot acknowledges, sometimes that's not an option.