Developing a program of mental health services in a rural county jail.

Abstract

#{149}In1975 a U.S. district court in Alabama issued an order enjoining the badly overcrowded Alabama state prison system from accepting any new prisoners until the prison population was reduced to a manageable 1evel. The order required all persons sentenced to the state prison to serve their sentences in the jail of the county from which they were sentenced. The result was to immediately create backlogs of state prisoners in the county jails. Within a few months the population of the Marengo County jail, located in a rural area of west central Alabama, increased from an average of 1 5 inmates to an average of 38, and soon thereafter reached 45. On weekends, with the normal influx of persons arrested for misdemeanor changes, the overnight population of the small jail often exceeded its 52 beds. The average length of stay also increased. Where previously no one was sentenced to the jail for more than two years, at one time in 1978 the average sentence was 25. 15 years. Even before the court order was issued, the Marengo County sheriff, who served as administrator of the jail, had approached the director of the West Alabama Mental Health Center to request a joint program by mental health-criminal justice agencies to improve conditions in the jail. His goals were to provide mental health senvices to inmates, to develop programs that would assist in reducing the negative impact of the anticipated overcrowding, and to improve jail administration. The mental health center agreed to provide a psychologist on a contractual basis; the sheriffs office would provide the facilities and most of the funding under a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. The