The reason the Richmond recommendations failed

Callan Park NSW

The reason the Richmond recommendations failed is because the supported community accommodation and therapeutic programs that were envisaged as replacing the nut houses were never funded, unlike in the Scandinavian countries Richmond studied during his inquiry and which have had a very successful experience of psychiatric deinstitutionalisation.

Whether you keep people designated 'mentally ill' bombed out on zombie pills in prisons, locked hospital wards, secure psychiatric institutions or immigration detention centres you are writing a blank cheque for their abuse.

I suspect that most victims don't particularly distinguish between the type of institutions that abuse them or whether they should be calling their abusers 'doctor' or 'warden'.

Philip Mitchell's suggestion that moving the Long Bay loonie bin less than 100 metres will somehow make a difference to the treatment of forensic prisoners is ludicrous.

As Mark Brown of Melbourne Uni points out in 'We are neutral therapists', prison psychiatrists and psychologists are at least as abusive towards their charges as are prison officers.

If "the 1980s were ... a different kind of community" its because now Big Pharma is a much more powerful and organised lobby group than it was then. Because antipsychotics are used primarily to control patients - not treat mental illness - the drug companies have a major interest in keeping as many people in institutions and 'managed' with their pills as possible.

Those companies also fund the organisations and research projects.

Drug company funding is also behind the resurgence in the utterly debunked tabloid portrayal of the mentally ill as dangerous that is exploited them.

There are about 2000 murders in Australia over six years so if only 30 (1.5%) are committed by the mentally ill - who make up at least 5% of the population - that suggests that the mentally ill are less than one third as likely as the healthy to kill someone.

Studies on schizophrenia and violent offending fail to control for the way the legal culture interacts with these sorts of offences.

If you are up on charges and mentally ill you are less likely to mount a competent defence and more likely to be convicted.

If you do *not* have a pre-existing diagnosis of mental illness you are more likely to end up with one if you are up on violent offence charges - especially if you let your lawyer run your case.

Lets not forget that it was a NSW psychiatric hospital that Cornelia Rau was running from when she ended up in Baxter.

To the psychiatric industry, the problem isn't that Ms Rau found it so abusive that she needed to run from it, but rather that she was able to escape.

She must be very grateful to Bob Ellis for busting her out of Glenside instead of just exploiting her situation for his own narrow agenda as everyone else seems determined to do.

More emergency mental health beds? Sure. We need more emergency beds of all kinds in our health system.

What we *don't* need is an extension of the mental health gulag that already keeps far too many Australians out of sight and bombed out of their minds.

Some people want to remain anonymous

The federal attorney-general has suggested that two women wrongfully detained by the Immigration Department could have avoided being locked up if they had cooperated more with authorities.

By Reader Posted 18 July 05

Related

Time to get mentally ill out of jails
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The New Asylums
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JAILS AND PRISONS - THE NEW ASYLUMS:
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Submission to Senate: Inquiry into Mental Health 2005
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'Killing Rational' and Prisoner Control in NSW
Dear Justice Action, I'm writing to you regarding xxxx, he has rung me a few times in the past weeks and has been drugged to the max, he rang today twice and could hardly speak to me, he said he was going to ring you and talk to you about it but he couldn't so I told him I would get in contact with you and see what you could do! He has told them he doesn't want the sedatives but they hold him down and give it to him anyway, they have drugged him 4 times in the last 2 days he said.

Mental Health Tribunal recommendations on forensic inmates
Below is the answer we have received from the Minister for Health regarding prisoners recommended for parole or release by the Mental Health Tribunal FYI

Death in custody: In memory of Scott Simpson
Scott Simpson 34 died in custody on 7 June 2004 leaving behind one child. It is alleged that he hanged himself in a segregation yard at Long Bay Prison Complex. Justice Action has reasons to believe that Scott had been mistreated from the time he was taken into custody and the subsequent events that ensued that led to his sad death. We think that his treatment may well have caused his death.

Doctor Ron Woodham I presume?
"Corrections Health staff provide medical care. However, its staff's authority is essentially limited to making recommendations to corrective services on treatment. Corrective services staff can then decide what treatment can be given."

Isolation, psychiatric treatment and prisoner' control
The 2003 NSW Corrections Health Service (now Justice Health) Report on Mental Illness Among NSW Prisoners states that the 12 month prevalence of any psychiatric disorder in prison is 74%, compared to 22% in the general community, and while this includes substance disorder the high rate cannot be attributed to that alone.

Call for royal commission into NSW prison health system
Mr Tony Ross a social justice activist said yesterday that a royal commission into the health system in NSW should be wide reaching to ensure that the Corrections Health Service is also exposed because of reported widespread cover ups in the prisons health system.

Watchdogs slaughtered in NSW
On Tuesday the Carr Government reduced transparency and accountability yet again and New South Wales is in danger of becoming entrenched with cronyism and intimidations with the Carr Labor Government that continues to slaughter the watchdogs.

Escape proof but not so the prisoners mind
Fewer prisoners escape from prison these days because they're "cemented in" by materials that do not break and by legislation that can keep prisoners in jail until they die.

Carr's Castle the real story H.R.M.U.The High Risk Management Unit Goulburn Correctional Centre. A prisoner writes, " I was unsuccessful in my letters to Dr Matthews CEO of the Corrections Health Service on my problem regarding air - claustrophobic effect the cells have on me. Just recently the management decided my injuries are not seriously affecting me so no further discussions are necessary.

Risdon prisoners' seize prison to protest mistreatment
Apparently one prisoner had been mistreated and held in isolation in an SHU (Segregation Housing Unit) [Solitary Confinement] because, he'd had and altercation with a screw. SHUs cause severe mental harm - regarded as torture - and are a cruel, inhumane and degrading way to keep prisoners.

No Safe Place
In a brief four month span from August 1999, five men died in Tasmania's Risdon prison. Their deaths have put the state's corrections system in the dock and led to the planned demolition of a jail which even the State's Attorney-General now calls an "appalling facility".

Association for the Prevention of Torture
The Optional Protocol requires 20 ratifications to enter into force. All States Parties to the UN Convention against Torture should seriously consider ratifying the OPCAT as soon as possible. National Institutions and others promoting the human rights of people deprived of their liberty need to be informed of their potential role as national preventive mechanisms under the OPCAT.

Corrected or Corrupted
A psychiatrist from the prison Mental Health Team attached to Queensland Health made the comment that 25 per cent of inmates suffer from a diagnosed mental illness.

ICOPA XI International Conference on Penal Abolition
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Ex-Prisoner Locked Out of Prison
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Justice Action: Access to our community
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Overhaul Department of Justice: Reform Group
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Detention Centres, Solitary Confinement
On Friday night the NSW Council for Civil Liberties awarded Sydney solicitor John Marsden honorary life membership. Julian Burnside was invited to make the speech in Marsden's honour. In the course of his speech, Burnside referred to the unregulated use of solitary confinement in Australia's immigration detention centres, criticising it as inhumane and also as unlawful.

2nd Renaissance - Beyond Industrial Capitalism and Nation States Some Practicalities Of Emptying The Prisons [287] Given the importance that prisons and punishment have in maintaining control of increasingly restless populations, the task of achieving the release of the people in the jails and the closure of those institutions, seems daunting. But it is so vital to the 2nd Renaissance that we must find ways to do it.

Mental health care is being reinstitutionalised

Deinstitutionalisation of mental health care in the 1970s in western Europe now tends to be compensated or even overcompensated for by reinstitutionalisation.

Priebe and colleagues (p 123) compared the data on changes in service provision in six western European countries.

The number of psychiatric hospital beds has been reduced in five countries, but in only two countries this reduction outweighs the number of additional places in forensic institutions and supported housing.

The authors discuss possible explanations, but reasons for the phenomenon remain unclear.

Source: Mental health care is being reinstitutionalised

By BMJ posted 17 January 05

Related:

Reinstitutionalisation in mental health care: comparison of data on service provision from six European countries Objective To establish whether reinstitutionalisation is occurring in mental health care and, if so, with what variations between western European countries.

UK:

Mentally ill face 'Asbo' measures
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Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
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Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
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Terror suspect tells of 'torture' that led to death wish
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USA:

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From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib Doesn't It Ring a (Prison) Bell
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Maoist Internationalist Movement
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Mental Illness In Jails
US-REPORT ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF SERVICES FOR PERSONS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS IN MAINES JAILS AND PRISONS PREPARED BY NAMI MAINE FALL, 2000

Australia:

Review of the Mental Health Act 1990
Indigenous Social Justice Association & Justice Action Mental Health Act Review Submission.

Review of the Mental Health Act 1990
This discussion paper is designed to look at the general terms of the Mental Health Act 1990, focussing on operational and treatment issues. The Paper has separate sections on each Chapter of the Act, and seeks general comments on all aspects of the legislation as well as identifying specific areas where suggestions for reform have arisen in the past, or as part of preliminary consultation on this Paper.

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Prison boom will prove a social bust
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Crime and Punishment
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Australia's "GITMO" System
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Attack prompts call for increased mental health funding
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Government justice not personal justice
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Jails-The new asylums?
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MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES IN N S W
Ms CLOVER MOORE (Bligh) [4.43 p.m.]: Today I speak about the shocking situation for people with mental illness, and call for urgent government action. There have been calls for reform of mental health services as far back as the 1983 Richmond report, followed by the 1988 Barclay report and the 1993 Burdekin report.

Conditions in the HRMU
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Forensic Hospital at Long Bay
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Escape from hell?
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Escape proof but not so the prisoners mind
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Parents on the inside leave children on the edge
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History of trauma dogs sole parents and the government
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RIOT ACT READ AGAINST INSPECTION TEAM
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Report recommends freeing child detainees
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Presentation at the Ngo Mental Health Conference
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Jails-The new asylums?
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Cry for help that led to the morgue
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History of trauma dogs sole parents and the government
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Child detainees 'living in a nightmare', report finds
A report being released today documents disturbing evidence about mental health for children in detention centres.

Letter from the mother of a prisoner on remand at the High Risk Management Unit Goulburn Correctional Centre
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Judicial, mental health and police corruption
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Howard, where's your head at?
How many Australians will convert this fear into Mental Illness?

RESTORING TRUE JUSTICE:
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Cuba Middle East

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US tortured Habib in Egypt: report
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There is no justification for torture
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US lawyers demand access to Habib
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Guantanamo prisoners may be moved to US soil
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Children at Abu Ghraib prison
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Govt urged to seek civil lawyer for Habib
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Pentagon names tribunal for Hicks trial
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US terror suspects can challenge detention
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Hicks lawyer praises Guantanamo decision
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Hicks and Habib in the Melting Pot
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Rumsfeld had approved abuse
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How much is that doggy in the prison? Woof woof!
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Failure to condemn prison abuse risks lives: Kenny
The Prime Minister is morally bankrupt stay "alert and alarmed"

Prisoner's identity concealed to prevent Red Cross access
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US has secret prisons: rights group
The United States is holding terrorism suspects in more than two dozen detention centres worldwide, about half of which operate in total secrecy, according to a new human rights report.

This won't hurt much
For some time now, I've been trying to find out where my son goes after choir practice. He simply refuses to tell me. He says it's no business of mine where he goes after choir practice and it's a free country.