Mental disorders are found in a fairly large number of the inmates in correctional institutions. There are no figures as to the number of inmates who are mentally disturbed—partly because it is hard to draw a precise line between “mental disturbance” and “normality”—but experts find that somewhere between 15% and 25% of inmates are suffering from disorders that are obvious enough to show up in routine psychiatric examinations. Society has not yet come to grips with the problem of what to do with mentally disturbed offenders. There is not enough money available to set up treatment programs for... Show more

Mental disorders are found in a fairly large number of the inmates in correctional institutions. There are no figures as to the number of inmates who are mentally disturbed—partly because it is hard to draw a precise line between “mental disturbance” and “normality”—but experts find that somewhere between 15% and 25% of inmates are suffering from disorders that are obvious enough to show up in routine psychiatric examinations. Society has not yet come to grips with the problem of what to do with mentally disturbed offenders. There is not enough money available to set up treatment programs for all the people identified as mentally disturbed; and there would probably not be enough qualified psychiatric personnel available to run such programs even if they could be set up. Most mentally disturbed offenders are therefore left to serve out their time in correctional institutions, and the burden of dealing with them falls on Corrections Officers. This means that a Corrections Officer must be sensitive enough to human behavior to know when he is dealing with a person who is not mentally normal and that the officer must be imaginative enough to be able to sense how an abnormal individual might react under certain circumstances.    

Show less