Mentally Ill Prisoners: Indian Perspective

Abstract

(create) Prisons in India are overcrowded institutions and the majority of them provide poor living conditions, lack of meaningful activity, endemic substance abuse, recurrent violence and sexual exploitation. Loss of freedom, separation from family and friends, uncertainty about the future, and the traumas of prison life all contribute to making living in prison a stressful experience. Psychiatric symptoms are common during the first 2 months of imprisonment. Thus the majority of psychiatric problems among mentally ill prisoners occur in under trial and remand prisoners. Prisons that contain adequate mental health services are exceptional and inmates with mental health problems remain undetected because of the absence of trained prison staff. The problems faced by the psychiatrist treating mentally ill prisoners in India include a near total lack of any follow-up of their behavior in the community and whether they are continuing their treatment or not. In the Indian penal system, wide discretionary powers are vested with the courts in enquiring into the mental condition of suspected mentally abnormal offenders. This causes deterioration and relapse of already treated and improving mental disorder. In summary, it is emphasized that there is an urgent need for improving the conditions in jails and developing separate forensic psychiatry specialty hospitals for better management and quality of care to the mentally ill prisoners in India. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)