News: Juvenile detention centers, jails, hospitals fail New Yorkers

Track Legislation: Obama ready to outlaw hate crimes
Disabilities will be protected under federal provisions of hate crimes in new law on the way to President Obama's desk for signature. Not all lawmakers agreed that the federal government should play a role in federalizing hate crimes. According to the New York Times "Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, said he agreed that hate crimes were terrible. "That's why they are already illegal," Mr. DeMint said, asserting that the new law was a dangerous, even "Orwellian" step toward...
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News: Al Jazeera reports criminalization of mental illness in US
Al Jazeera's investigative English speaking program, Fault Line, has created a two-part video series about how people with a mental illness are treated in the United States. . .
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News: Loathsome prison conditions for mentally ill

Did You Know: More than half of all prisoners in the United States have a mental illness.
Read more from the opening statement of Sen. Dick Durbin at the (Sept. 15, 2009) Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearings, "Human Rights at Home: Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons and Jails."...
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News: Prison chain wants psychiatric hospital

News: Forced ECT
A court order mandating electroshock therapy (ECT) for a 54-year-old Minnesota man with schizophrenia has drawn public outcry. Ray Sandford has been receiving ECT since May against his will. Unable to get them stopped, he contacted MindFreedom International for help. Sanford, who is a guardian of Lutheran Social Services, complains of headaches and memory loss and his mother concurs. She told Minnesota Public Radio that after an initial improvement, she expected they would stop. He no longer recognizes family members....
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From Our Readers: Esmin Green remembered
David Gonzalez writes about a demonstration remembering Esmin Green.
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News: England's new law on forced treatments
iStock PhotoLaws compelling outpatient treatment took effect in England earlier in the week, and the controversy mirrors debates in the US. Proponents argue mandatory treatment reduces hospitalization and promotes public safety while critics oppose coercion and point to considerable side effects. Results inconclusive In the end, reports the Guardian, analysis of 28 studies led experts to conclude, "There is very little evidence to suggest that CTOs [community treatment orders] are associated with any positive outcomes and there is justification for...
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Did You Know: 345,000 people with a mental illness are in prisons.
Read more from the American Prospect....
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Did You Know: 345,000 people with a mental illness are in prisons.
Read more from the American Prospect....
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News: Psychiatry and torture
As the current war on torture itself turned to torturing prisoners in Guantanamo, and during rendition, has the military asked psychiatrists to violate ethical boundaries and even international agreements? The 9.11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine discusses the tensions imposed by military service for psychiatrists, including certifying soldiers for redeployment....
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News: Psychiatry and torture
As the current war on torture itself turned to torturing prisoners in Guantanamo, and during rendition, has the military asked psychiatrists to violate ethical boundaries and even international agreements? The 9.11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine discusses the tensions imposed by military service for psychiatrists, including certifying soldiers for redeployment....
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News: Violence, mental health and human rights
Several articles in the August 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association address the relationship between violence and mental health. Articles have an international focus, and examine the impact of combat and armed conflict for military personnel exposed to combat; child soldiers in Nepal; children in Indonesia; citizens exposed to violence in Liberia; and sexual violence toward women in India....
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News: Psychiatric disorders at Guantanamo
A report released from Human Rights Watch, Locked Up Alone indicates that many of the prisoners at Guantanamo have developed psychiatric symptoms of a thought disorders such as schizophrenia (hallucinations, voices, self-mutilation), or anxiety, PTSD, depression which have led to suicide attempts during their detainment. The YouTube video shows a supervised press visit in March....
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News: Report slams Delaware Psychiatric Center
A bipartisan committee of Delaware’s General Assembly released a blistering report about problems in the Delaware Psychiatric Center. It spared no words on the administration which it said failed to address "an atmosphere of abuse, neglect and intimidation.” In the past six months, The News Journal published 130 articles exposing numerous incidents – some based on staff and whistle blowers, others on family or former patients – about threats to patient safety, assaults, rape, professional weakness, and general administrative mismanagement...
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News: Oregon’s hospitals unsafe
Restraints, assaults and environmental hazards, failure to monitor, to report and to protect are just a few of the threats to patient safety described in an on-line report of a Justice Department investigation into Oregon’s state hospital system. More than 600 patients receive treatment in two state facilities, including the Salem site, built in the 1880s....
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News: Ending solitary confinement in New York
A bill banning 24-hour solitary confinement for mentally ill prisoners in New York is on the way to Gov. Elliot Spitzer for signature. The measure was passed by the legislature after five years of intense lobbying from families, advocates, and professionals....
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Consider This: The other 398,150
by Phyllis Vine

How does strengthening commitment laws help people who need service in the community? Budget shortfall or not, Virginia needs to do more than pay lip service to needed reforms.


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News: Prison suicide
When he headed the civil rights division of the Clinton Justice Department, Mass. Governor Deval Patrick tried to end abuse for mentally ill prisoners. In the third of a three-part story about suicide in prisons, the Boston Globe asks why not the same for Mass.? Related British and Welch prison suicides...
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Consider This: Florida calls for end of trans-institutionalization
by Phyllis Vine


A bold report to Florida's governor recommends sweeping changes to address failures in the criminal justice and mental health system. “Transforming Florida’s Mental Health System" can guide significant reform.


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News: Three-day wait in Georgia's ERs
Psychiatric care in Georgia's emergency rooms can be delayed for up to three days according to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . As a result of full capacity in the state hospitals, the wait has averaged 39 hours in the past four months. Private hospitals have been asked to take the overflow, but they are also feeing the crunch. Georgia is still the subject of a federal investigation following the newspaper's series, "A Hidden Shame," documenting physical and sexual...
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News: China treats mental illness with surgery
The Wall Street Journal reports that in China some doctors routinely perform surgery on people suffering from schizophrenia or depression, a practice abhorrent in the West. The procedure destroys part of the brain and while doctors claim improvement more than 90 percent of the time, families see failures and new disabilities, and they are fighting back. In 2004, China banned similar procedures, called “ablative” surgery, for drug addiction....
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News: British and Welch prison suicides
Suicide in British and Welch prisons occurs roughly 33 times more often than in the general population, according to report issued by the "Forum For Preventing Deaths In Custody." Studying deaths in state custody, the report notes that of the roughly 600 prisoners who die in prison each year, about one-third of the deaths come from self-inflicted wounds. The report urges treatment instead of prison for people with mental illness....
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News: Crisis in global mental health
Lancet's third installment of a six-part series on global mental health discusses failures to address depression, schizophrenia, alcohol abuse, and developmental disorders in low- and middle-income countries. A review of 11,500 studies, or nearly 85,000 people in 17 countries, lead an international panel of authors to conclude that gaps in research and systems, shortages of community resources, and the failure to treat with price-effective interventions penalize low and middle-income countries: Most mental health systems in the world are dominated by...
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