Update: Virginia
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| Topics: legal, prisons, treatment programs
It’s ironic that while the Virginia General Assembly is talking about changing the mental health laws expanding and extending involuntary treatment, mentally ill prisoners already behind bars are not receiving care. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that in the county jail, only 20 percent of the inmates “diagnosed with schizophrenia or other delusional syndromes, as well as those with bipolar disease or major depression -- received medications designated for their conditions.”
Um, what the article said was that people weren't receiving atypicals, which are dangerous for many folks and no more effective than typicals. Also, medication isn't treatment by itself. The article stated that inmates wanted counseling, yet no one is talking about giving them that. Same in the general population, people at Virginia's Community Service Boards want counseling and there are long waiting lists, most who want it won't get it.
We have to stop equating medication and "treatment". We need much more than that for recovery.
Posted by Alison Hymes | January 31, 2008 8:31 PM---