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Mental Health Issues of Incarcerated Women

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Book cover A Public Health Perspective of Women's Mental Health

Abstract

This chapter discusses the specific needs of women who are held in US jails. While many of the characteristics of these women are shared by women who are incarcerated in prison, the nature of the jail as a short-term facility that processes and must treat vast numbers of people with many acute medical, mental health, and addiction problems in a short period of time makes this setting a particularly difficult place to provide good treatment. This chapter begins with a discussion of the magnitude of the problem and the rates of mental illnesses of women in jail, followed by other common characteristics of women with mental illnesses in jail. Building upon the argument that experiences of severe interpersonal violence across the lifecourse are central to the emergence of many mental illnesses, health problems, and addictions, the chapter presents principles of trauma-informed care, followed by trauma-informed mental health treatment. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of trauma-informed mental health services in jail settings.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Estimates were derived from 1999 summaries of admissions and census totals for US jails (Camp and Camp 2000). The average number of admissions to all jails was 23,364 and the average daily census was 1,480. Admissions exceeded census numbers by a factor of 15.8. Using this estimate on 2006 census numbers (Sabol et al. 2007; n= 759,906) results in an estimated admission population of 12,006,514 persons.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, 123 Washington Street, 07102, Newark, NJ, USA

    Bonita M. Veysey

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  1. Bonita M. Veysey
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, Bruce B. Downs Blvd. 13301, Tampa, 33612, U.S.A.

    Bruce Lubotsky Levin

  2. Dept. Mental Health Law & Policy, University of South Florida, Bruce B. Downs Blvd. 13301, Tampa, 33612, U.S.A.

    Marion Ann Becker

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Veysey, B. (2010). Mental Health Issues of Incarcerated Women. In: Levin, B., Becker, M. (eds) A Public Health Perspective of Women's Mental Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1526-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1526-9_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1525-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1526-9

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