Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang has said it best, putting the mentally ill behind bars is crazy!

As a human rights organisation working in the island’s correctional facility, we come face to face with the horror that the mentally ill experience in prison when there are no alternatives for them. The fact is that solutions for the mentally ill should begin at the community health care level before the cases, as they inevitably do, end up before the courts and in the hands of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), which is ill-equipped to deal with these individuals as it regards their need for mental health care.

The revelations by the Legal Aid Council that more than 300 mentally ill people are languishing behind bars is something that policymakers have known for some time now, but have done nothing about.

One of the most critical courses of action that should be taken immediately is the establishment of a joint team to explore the possibility of transferring those inmates deemed unfit to plead to a transitional facility.There is a need for a modern forensic psychiatric facility for the people who are in prison and deemed unfit to plead, and it is full time the public gets an update on the progress that has been made to date on the establishment of such a facility.

While we wait for this facility, however, the next best option is diverting mentally ill defendants to day- care centres where they can receive the care they need. Institutionalisation of the mentally ill should be a last resort, because this infringes their rights and reduces the possibility for them to be recuperated or cured.

If diversion is to be a solution the focus needs to be on providing support to the families of the mentally ill so that they can properly care for them. The day-care centres can serve as rehabilitation facilities at which they can learn a practical skill and be engaged in some productive activity. This will ease the pressure off the families who will only need to care for them at nights. Consideration should also be given for the establishment of halfway houses for the individuals who have suffered some type of trauma and just need a place they can go to recuperate so they can return to a normal life.

Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn has noted that Section 25 of the Criminal Justice (Administration) Act already makes provisions for the remand of mentally ill defendants to a psychiatric facility, and also for a supervision, guardianship or treatment order to be made by the court. According to Llewellyn, a defendant’s fitness to stand trial is determined by monthly reports that the commissioner of corrections is mandated to submit to the court, but there has been an apparent lack of communication between the DCS and the courts in this regard.

The issue of mentally ill inmates has, therefore, become a hot potato that is being bounced around among the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of National Security, with none willing to take action on a matter on which the law is clear.

So, what should happen when practice and law seem to be at odds? Someone must step up and provide leadership.

The appointment of a new commissioner of corrections provides the perfect opportunity for this leadership in respect of collaborating with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice in bringing the psychiatric records of the 300-plus mentally ill inmates before the courts and having the necessary orders made to have them removed from prison.

The Ministry of Health, in turn, should make arrangements for a specialist psychiatric team to be in place to care for the inmates until a more permanent solution can be found.

On the question of accountability, the Ministry of Health must dust off the report of the Mental Health and Homelessness Task Force and begin to see about the implementation of its recommendations so that mentally ill individuals who come into conflict with the law can be diverted to treatment facilities, thereby ensuring that the number of mentally ill people behind bars does not continue to grow.

If everyone can agree that our prisons are no place for the mentally ill and will only serve to exacerbate their condition, then why is it so difficult to follow the law and provide them with the psychiatric care they need?

Carla Gullotta is executive director of Stand Up for Jamaica. Send comments to the Observer or sufjmedia2@gmail.com.