Arizona prisons are failing persons incarcerated with behavioral disorders

Arizona prisons house a large number of adults with mental illnesses. It is projected that these special needs offender make up approximately 24 % of the state’s total prison population. This continued and growing population is a direct result of prisons taking the place for state hospitals hampering their ability to provide sound correctional practices in operational concerns as well as healthcare treatment issues as these offenders pose a special challenge to those in charge of our public prisons and responsible for their confinement, rehabilitation, treatment and supervision.

It is a well-known fact that these growing prison populations have already stressed the ability of our state to provide the proper resources because of fiscally strapped budgets with no immediate relief in sight. It takes plenty of money to meet these requirements and in order to provide these offenders minimal care, they must streamline their programs, treatment, medication and staff resources as it is already determined that these type of requirements are needed to stabilize, recover or avoid re-incarceration pitfalls.

One method to manage this problem is to outsource this care to an outside healthcare contractor with stipulations in the contract to provide the necessary care and treatment as diagnosed upon entry into the adult prison system. As of July 1, 2012, the state has opted to do exactly that, outsource medical and behavioral care to Wexford Corporation. This option is, however, very expensive and difficult to monitor or track for contractual compliance with services rendered. 

Since then,  Corizon has taken over and bungled the effort to deliver services even further. There is no progress and no consistency in their implementation of contractual services required, rendered or expected. Individuals with behavioral health problems are being neglected either intentionally or unintentionally through several undetected means thus still falling short of the required level of care. 

These persons rely heavily on a sound treatment environment so they can meet the agencies behavioral and safety expectations, follow the rules and perform the basic social skills needed for coping and stabilization while incarcerated. The reality is that addressing their needs are most difficult under the current confinement conditions and most expensive in the sense of finding the right housing locations, the right staff available, the right medication and proper compliance and supervision to ensure these offenders are taking their meds.

It has become a question for many policymakers, practitioners and lawmakers whether these resources are being put to best use in the area of public safety and behavioral health concerns. They should be examining the possibilities of providing less expensive treatment in the communities rather than exhausting those within the adult prison system that doesn't seem to be working very well leaving these offenders high risk of returning back to prison.

Arizona needs to explore all alternatives available within the criminal justice system that addresses appropriate reduction of prison growth and treatment available through community resources rather than correctional facilities that have so far exhibited no success in reducing the extent of an increase in violence, suicides, self-harm injuries and increased "natural deaths" that may be directly related to the manner medication is dispensed, monitored or complied with inside our prisons. 

It should focus on drug courts, mental health courts and newly created relationships between defense lawyers, prosecutors, judges and other members of the criminal justice system to allow more flexibility in plea bargaining, probationary status and increase the services of an expanded community corrections supervision plan that should include various alternative outpatient  treatment programs linked to community providers rather than the corrections
department's budget and other state healthcare resources.