Corrections, Mental Health, and Social Policy: International Perspectives

This book is well suited to readers dealing with correctional issues in today's complex global society. Given the task of providing adequate mental health care to the burgeoning U.S. prison population, including those thousands with serious mental illnesses who have defaulted from the nation's disjointed mental health systems, the book provides a consideration of approaches and ideas beyond those generated in the domestic academic-practitioner community, including the mental health concerns that transcend borders and national sovereignty. In this category are the treatment and management of terrorists, immigrants, political prisoners, transnational gang members and drug traffickers, and those who have been victimized by imprisonment. The book purposely takes an unconventional approach intended to challenge intellectual complacency, to leave readers with fresh perspectives regarding previously familiar concepts, and to propose new ideas and goals for correctional practice, research, teaching, advocacy, and social policy development. Toward this end, several foreign mental health professionals or academics with a specialty in correctional mental health research and practice contribute to a volume that may challenge the ways in which mental health issues have been traditionally approached. In so doing, the book better informs and guides the readers as theorists, scientists, practitioners, and advocates. It will be of interest to a wide range of health care providers, criminal justice and legal professionals, social and political scientists, and students of psychology and criminal justice.