Prisoners with Special Needs PDF

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Prisoner with Special Needs Kelly Lanham CJS/255 7/1/2019

In correctional facilities face challenges regarding the inmates that are being incarcerated. Some of these inmates need special attention and special care for them to be able to make it through their day. There are people incarcerated who have mental illnesses, and there are people who have substance abuse problems, as well as the elderly who need to be cared for while they are incarcerated. This paper will discuss how special needs, mentally ill, and substance-abusing prisoners affect the jail and prison system at the state and federal levels. This paper will also discuss what would happen if these prisoners were not cared for properly. This paper will also analyze a program offered to one of the special offender populations aimed to care for that population. Correctional facilities house many different people. There are people in the facility who are considered special offenders. These offenders are offenders whose circumstances, conditions, or behaviors require management or treatment outside of the normal approach to supervision. (Seiter, 2014 )These people can include juveniles who have been waived from jurisdiction of the juvenile court to adult court ad correctional systems, offenders who have a serious drug problem or mental illness, as well as offenders who are considered elderly, or over the age of fifty. The impact the special offenders have on the jail and prison system at the state and federal level is the cost of housing them, particularly for the elderly. Between forty percent and sixty percent of prisoners over fifty have some type of mental illness or cognitive impairment, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The authors of the Osborne report wrote, “Prisons were never designed to be geriatric care facilities and this surging elder incarceration comes at a high cost.” The cost of housing elderly inmates now represents an estimated sixteen billion a year burden on taxpayers and growing. ("The Rising Cost of Incarcerating the Elderly", 2018)

There is also a problem in which where the special needs offenders will be housed. Special needs offenders, such as juvenile offenders who have been waived to adult court typically need to be house in different areas from other inmates to keep them safe. These areas may become overcrowded and made the staff unable to accommodate the offenders who need to be accommodated. Mentally ill offenders also have an impact on prison and jail systems because they can be a challenge to handle. Mentally ill offenders are not deterred by typical punishment. They may understand that they have received a long-term prison sentence for their crimes yet may not be able to use that punishment as an incentive to discontinue criminal activities. (Seiter, 2014) For offenders who struggle with substance abuse there is also an impact on the jails and prisons from them. These offenders, in federal prisons, constituted the largest groups of inmates, as approximately 97,472 federal prisoners were serving a sentence for drug offense in 2010. The programs offered to the inmates can be quite costly and economic downturn and less tax revenue for states have resulted in some ill-advised decisions regarding the programs. (Seiter, 2014) Not caring for special needs offenders properly could pose many issues. For any of the special needs, whether it be the substance abusers, the elderly, or the mentally ill, for all these offenders if they are not cared for properly their symptoms could worsen. For mentally ill if they are not given their proper dosages of medication then their illness could take over and cause them to be violent towards guards, which in turn could cause them to go to solitary. Solitary confinement could be worse for someone who is mentally ill because it takes them away from all their peers and forces them to be alone for extended periods of time. Not caring for the offenders who struggle with substance abuse could result in them reoffending again once their sentence is over and they are back in their communities.

In Nevada there has been a program developed for the elderly with the hold of the prison’s psychologist and the Nevada Division of Aging Services called “True Grit”. In the program each day involved some combination of physical activity, therapy, and spirituality. Poetry journals are published, and plays are produced. “True Grit” also brings in pets for a prisoner pet therapy. The “True Grit” Program reports that the number of doctor visits and medications taken by elderly inmates has decreased. Loneliness has been replaced with a support system and they are no longer just sitting around or sleeping all day. ("True Grit Elderly in Prisons" Program, n.d.) The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) lack enough medical personnel, and facilities are not equipped to accommodate the special needs and physical limitations of elderly prisons. Bureau of Prisons employees are not properly trained to recognize and address the needs of elderly prisoners, and there are currently not enough social workers to help the large number of elderly prisoners find the recourses they need for successful reentry. Due to all this in 2007 the Second Chance Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush, which included an elderly offender release program, but only lasted two years. Making such a release program broader and permanent would reduce prison costs and treat the elderly with greater dignity by permitting incarceration in their own homes, without endangering the public. ("Compassionate and Early Release Programs for Elderly Prisoners", 2019) Caring for special inmates is important. Even though it may be costly for the facility the overall goal for inmates of any kind is to try and rehabilitate them. Making sure these people are cared for to the best of the staff’s ability is the key to making sure they people do not reoffend. For substance abuse offenders this means showing them different programs they can access to stay clean from drugs and help them to stay off drugs. There are also programs substance abuse

offenders can go to outside of prison, these programs are called narcotics anonymous (NA) and alcoholics anonymous (AA). Following these programs can help these offenders stay clean and stay out of prison. It is important for mentally ill patients to be taken care of properly because it could result in them lashing out and lading them in solitary confinement, which would make their mental illness worse because they are secluded from others for extended periods of time. Special needs inmates are difficult to care for, yes, but caring for them properly can help them lead a better life.

Reference Seiter, R. (2014). Corrections: An Introduction (4th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database. The Rising Cost of Incarcerating the Elderly (2018). Retrieved from https://thecrimereport.org/2018/05/17/the-rising-cost-of-punishing-the-elderly/ "True Grit Elderly in Prisons" Program (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.programsforelderly.com/cool-truegrit-prisons.php Compassionate and Early Release Programs for Elderly Prisoners (2019). Retrieved from https://famm.org/our-work/u-s-congress/early-release-programs-elderly-prisoners/...