He subsequently died of toxic poisoning. While corrections officers are spending an inordinate amount of their time monitoring the mentally ill, the general prison population takes advantage of the situation by breaching security. This creates a serious safety problem in the facility. To remedy this situation, mentally ill inmates are often placed in segregation cells with no treatment options as a means of controlling or limiting their actions, to protect them from more violent criminals and to protect corrections personnel. Not only are mentally ill inmates isolated from the general population, they are not provided adequate treatment for their illnesses.
Violent criminals prey on the weak in prison, and the mentally ill are prime targets.
Corrections personnel who have to confront mentally ill inmates are being subjected to additional stress beyond the norm. Not only do these officers have to cope with the most violent members of our society but they also have to endure the extremely unpredictable and often violent behavior of mentally ill inmates who cannot be controlled. Our nation has close to two million people locked up on any given day in our jails and prisons. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has estimated that the incidence of those diagnosed with the most serious mental disorders is 16 percent of this population. Those in the mental health field say that the figure is closer to 20 percent.