Florida Department of Corrections Communications Office
Tallahassee, Fla. — Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Crews announced today a number of measures aimed at ensuring the appropriate care and custody for Florida inmates with mental health conditions and protecting public safety.
Secretary Crews said: “The Department is responsible for the custody of between 15 and 20 percent of its inmates having a diagnosed mental condition requiring mental health treatment. We are committed to ensure our actions are reflective of the Department’s mission to promote public safety and the safety of our staff and our inmates by providing them appropriate security, supervision, and care.”
Secretary Crews’ announcement follows a comprehensive review of the Department’s policies related to the care of inmates with mental health conditions. The review was conducted by Dr. Aufderheide, a nationally recognized expert in mental health care, and Mr. Upchurch, also a nationally recognized expert in institutional and security operations. They recommended in a memo to Secretary Crews (attached) that the Department take the following actions:
A Mental Health Ombudsman will be appointed to enhance the Department efforts in the care and treatment of inmates with severe mental illness. The Ombudsman will provide a specialized resource to the Department for the most vulnerable mentally ill inmates, which are the approximately 1,000 inmates with severe mental illness admitted to the Department’s inpatient units.
The Mental Health Ombudsman will be the first of its kind in the nation’s prison systems dedicated solely to inmates with severe mental illness inpatient level care. It will be established as a specialized liaison to the Office of Health Services for mentally ill inmates in the inpatient units and will report directly to Dr. Aufderheide, Director of Mental Health Services, while collaborating with existing staff.
To address the challenges faced by staff, the Department expanded its Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) programs for correctional officers. The training strategically focused on frontline security staff acquiring 1) a working knowledge of mental illness; 2) an understanding of the challenges mentally ill inmates face in prison adjustment, 3) crisis intervention skills; 4) basic de-escalation skills; and advanced de-escalation techniques. The goal is to avoid unnecessary uses of force, which results in increased staff and inmate safety. As of this date, 2,749 officers currently with the Department have completed the CIT training.
The Department is also developing specialized training for staff assigned to the inpatient units, which are located at 10 institutions across the state. The training emphasizes working as a team with a multidisciplinary approach to improve the care and custody of the inmates with severe mental illness residing in the inpatient units. The collaboration among all members of the multidisciplinary treatment team results in improved supervision and care of mentally ill inmates in the Department’s Inpatient Mental Health Units.
In addition, the Department anticipates a Corrections Behavioral Health Certification made available in the near future that will certify officers assigned to the care of inmates to understand the mental health spectrum of issues, from the time an inmate first enters prison throughout the incarceration period.