Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

State prison staff train to intervene in mental health crises

Annie Ropeik/Delaware Public Media
Mental illness expert Dr. Clarence Watson speaks to Dept. of Corrections employees during crisis interventiopn training Monday

Correctional officers from around Delaware are getting a crash course in the warning signs of mental illness -- and how to act on them -- at a training this week.

It's part of a new approach Delaware's prison system is taking to treating inmates with mental illness.

 

In a conference room at the Department of Corrections, mental illness expert Dr. Clarence Watson took about 50 prison guards and supervisors through the common signs of illnesses like schizophrenia.

It's just one area the COs covered at this crisis intervention training, which aims to teach them how to spot a psychotic or suicidal episode before it happens -- and share insights with prisoners' health providers.

Judith Caprio is the DOC's behavioral health director. She says it's a challenge for COs -- or anyone -- to look past the stigmas around mental illness and get inmates the care they need. But that's what trainings like this hope to change.

"It is an illness, and it needs to be treated," she says. "And officers aren't the ones to treat it, but officers are the ones that can provide a wealth of information to the treating professionals."

She's talking about day-to-day insights into patient behavior she says only COs can offer to prisoners' mental health providers.

"You know, the person may have gotten a family visit, and maybe somebody died in the family," she says. "Well, what kinds of behaviors now does this officer need to identify to prevent something from happening? Or maybe these are behaviors that are more typical of this particular offender."

Caprio notes that, quote-"next to no" Delaware inmates are on forced medication -- she says almost all care decisions are made with input from the prisoners and, increasingly, the COs that work with them.

The state has come under fire in a lawsuit announced last week, in which two nonprofits allege the state keeps too many mentally ill offenders in solitary confinement for too long. Mentally ill prisoners make up more than half the state's prison population, and about a third of inmates in confinement.

The DOC says this week's training was pre-planned and isn't in response to that suit -- but Caprio does note that better crisis training could help reduce the violations that can land inmates in solitary.

"The whole idea of a [crisis intervention training] is to look at a behavior early on," she says. "So if you can prevent a behavior, or prevent that acting out from occurring, then that may reduce … institutional infractions, which will then have an impact on the number of people who need to be in confinement," -- or, she says, on how long they're kept there. She also more intense screening when inmates first enter the system should improve care and reduce bad behavior.

The DOC is also adding basic mental health training for new staff, with the eventual goal of training more COs to lead therapeutic communities within prisons -- that's blocks of inmates with shared situations, like recovering alcoholics.

This week's training is geared toward COs who work with mentally ill prisoners. Down the line, Caprio hopes to expand it to many more DOC staff.

Related Content