Jail does meet mental health requirements

By Liz Lockhart

A grand court jury have round that, contrary to criticism against the Fresno County Jail, the jail meets it’s legal obligations with regard to the mentally ill inmates.

The grand jury said in a report released this week that while errors can occur in treatment, the jain is not guilty of a pattern of violating policies or the law.

After receiving a complaint about the treatment of inmates with mental illness the grand jury held an investigation. The complaint alleged that treatment has been substandard and that is cruel and unusual punishment.

The complaint came from a ‘Fresno chapter of a national organisation’, but did not identify the organisation the grand jury said. The jail was accused of changing or withholding psychotropic medications to reduce costs, leaving inmates unable to participate in their own defence.

Mental health treatment in a jail is a complex issue the grand jury said. Whether the jail is a health-treatment centre was the crux of the complaint.

The jail is an incarceration centre, and ‘is not by definition, an inpatient health care facility’ the jurors said. ‘And its responsibility, by law, is to provide ‘emergency and basic health care services,’ the report said.

‘The jail is not a mental health centre’ Sheriff Margaret Mims agreed.

‘We have clinics available to take the inmates to if they need to be transported, and we do that,’ Mims said.

Kenneth Taniguchi, Fresno County Public Defender, said his concern is for his clients with mental illness. ‘We understand we can’t view the jail as a state mental hospital,’ he said. ‘The criminal justice system has put this whole problem on the join, where it shouldn’t be to begin with.’

Group therapy sessions should be increased the grand jury said. The sessions help inmates cope with incarceration and also assist them to cope with life outside jail.

Dr. Edward Moreno, county public health officer and director of the Fresno County Department of Public Health told the court that group therapy sessions have been cut for budget reasons.

We all realise that prison is not a health care centre but could we ask why mentally-ill patients are incarcerated in places where there illness cannot be catered for and treated.