13 Dec How Technology Could Improve Mental Health In Prisons–But So Far Isn't
I’m a psychiatrist working with severely mentally ill people incarcerated in jails. Technologists, here’s how you can help.
I’m a psychiatrist working with severely mentally ill people incarcerated in jails. Technologists, here’s how you can help.
The U.S. correctional system is facing a mental health crisis. Among its prisons and jails, it houses 10 times more people with mental illnesses than all of the country’s mental health hospitals combined. The rate of serious mental illnesses in the jail population is between 3 to 6 times higher than the normal population.
Statistics like these are hard to fathom out of context, but I see these challenges firsthand at my clinical practice. For about a week a month I work at a maximum security jail in the Bay Area, where I treat inmates with severe mental illness. I spend the rest of time as a director of digital health at Brain Power, a mental-health focused technology startup. These worlds might seem far apart, but I’ve often thought about how we can utilize cutting-edge innovations in technology to help some of our most disenfranchised communities, especially those wrapped up in the judicial system.
My major takeaway thus far is that our correctional system has become our mental health system. And our correctional mental health care is for many people their only source of care. I see huge opportunities for technology to help address some key issues in correctional institutions, and more specifically jail mental health. But there are three challenges that are really important to understand before we swoop in with a trendy new telemedicine app or wearable.
Source: Fast Company
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