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Abstract: 

Prison administrations often struggle to find meaningful, therapeutic treatments to manage prisoners with mental health issues and rely instead on security-focused responses such as segregation and use of force. These can exacerbate preexisting health concerns, and previous court challenges have stressed the need for independent review, administrative oversight, and data disclosure of these practices. Such oversight mechanisms have proven insufficient, however, to ensure that custodial facilities comply with existing legal frameworks, let alone their recommendations. Much of the legal and administrative oversight mimics a cat-and-mouse game rather than a genuine opportunity to transform the current practice, especially with the definitional changes in what constitutes segregation. A recent decarceration trend promoted by the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates that safer and more humane community-based alternatives are possible. Greater investments in these options are crucial.

Keywords: Prisoners’ mental health, use of segregation, administrative oversight, decarceration, community-based care

Affiliations:  1: University of Toronto; 2: University of Toronto.