The Development of a Canadian Prison Based Program for Offenders with Mental Illnesses

Abstract

A relatively large number of individuals entering the criminal justice system have a mental illness. Perhaps as many as 6% to 15% of inmates in North America have a serious mental illness, exceeding the rate found in the general population (Hodgins & Cote, 1990; Ogloff, Roesch, & Hart, 1994; Teplin, 1990). To increase the range of services available to MDOs, a number of initiatives have been undertaken in British Columbia, including the development of a prison-based mental health program. The Program has been designed for provincial offenders with a major mental illness to be conducted across a five-month (20-week) period, emphasizing the treatment and management of the offender's illness as well as the interruption of the offender's crime cycle. Currently still under development, the Program has adopted a graduated or multi-tiered approach to treatment with program content presented to participants across three distinct phases: (1) the comprehensive psychodiagnostic phase, (2) the intensive treatment phase, and (3) the community re-integration preparation phase. The purpose of this paper was to describe the Mental Health Program and to highlight important research upon which the program model was predicated.