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| Treating mentally ill prisoners would save enormous sums |
| By theage.com.au- Jim Coombs |
| Published: 04/06/2015 |
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Imprisonment costs the taxpayers $110,000 an inmate a year. A considerable proportion of those inmates - estimates vary from 25 up to 70 per cent - have a diagnosable mental illness. In varying degrees, this is related to the offences for which they were convicted. That means anywhere from 3000 to 7500 jail inmates in NSW are mentally ill. There is psychiatric treatment in NSW jails for no more than 300 inmates. The Department of Corrections has estimated in the past few years that 900 prisoners a year are psychotic on admission to jail. Looking at the arithmetic, this suggests that at any time there could be 600 or more untreated psychotics in the system. As a matter of sheer economics, moving treatable offenders into treatment should be a high priority, because if treatment in the community significantly reduces offending behaviour, it will save the taxpayers enormous sums of money. The present regime allows for offenders to be discharged under the Mental Health Act (section 32). While it does allow for a requirement to undertake treatment, and this is often made a condition of release, enforcement is difficult, because it depends on the co-operation of private practitioners in the mental health area. Read More. |
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