News of the Day 9-07-06

A new DOJ study says that over half of inmates in US prisons and jails reported mental health problems in the last year. These numbers are higher than past reports due to inclusion of major depression or mania along with the usual, diagnosed psychiatric disorders. Jails reported more such offenders than did state prisons; the feds' percentage was lowest. More women than men, more whites than minorities. The fraction of offenders receiving some form of treatment while behind bars, even just medication, is something that you may be better off not knowing. . . . Given our current CA Challenge(!) "open source" experiment, this news that the CA prison guard union has come out for the Democrat in the gov's race in Nov might enter into your well-considerd contribution-to-come. . . . In ND, the state's Commission on Alternatives to Incarceration has asked the gov to add $600,000 to his biennial budget for juvenile and adult drug courts and millions more for extended meth treatment. The state's prison pop has gone from fewer than 500 in the early 90s to over 1400 today, mainly, officials believe, because of meth and other drugs. The ND commission is authorized to provide direct info and rec's to the gov for the state budget. . . . Along the same lines the WA DOC is asking for $26.3 m. in that state's biennial budget for improved reentry efforts. Reportedly, the gov made the mistake of asking the new P&P guy to figure out how to reduce recidivism. We'll see if the mistake is made twice.