A new report from Delaware’s Protection and Advocacy system calls on the state’s Department of Correction to make changes to help incarcerated people with mental illnesses.
The report finds the DOC needs to improve transparency and data sharing, as DOC declined many requests for more information to complete the report.
The Community Legal Aid Society report says DOC appears to remain in compliance with policy changes that were a result of a federal lawsuit in 2016. But experts in the report suggest further reforms.
CLASI’s Disability Law Program protects the legal rights of people with disabilities in Delaware and serves as a watchdog for related violations.
DLP supervising attorney Elizabeth Booth says their program is small, so they can’t monitor every facility or investigate every concern they receive.
The report recommends expanding care and access to care to more than just patients in crisis.
“If you have a more robust continuum of care, it can make those transitions between settings smoother and provide people more options if, maybe, they move down from the Residential Treatment Unit level of care,” Booth said.
An incarcerated person quoted in the report said, “If you aren’t in the [Residential Treatment Unit], your mental health care is finished.”
“It was often easier for individuals to get their needs met, both from a mental health standpoint and in terms of a medical like other medical care standpoint, when they were in those units and had more regular access to mental health staff and more therapeutic interaction,” Booth said.
The report also advises storing naloxone in housing areas, creating safeguards for people in administrative segregation and increasing access to group therapy and recreational activities.
CLASI is also currently involved in a lawsuit relating to incarcerated special education students. The oral argument for CLASI’s motion for a preliminary injunction is Sept. 19.
