Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It

Kupers, a forensic psychiatrist and psychology professor at the Wright Institute, has been an active observer at county jails for 25 years and has served as an expert witness in court cases involving treatment of prisoners. Here he delivers a powerful and constructive criticism of the attitudes prison professionals hold toward inmates and the way inmates are physically handled, especially the mentally disturbed but also women and racial minorites. He focuses on abysmal physical conditions, unsanitary and often physically threatening overcrowding, the traumatization and debasement of prisoners, worker burn-out, and woefully inadequate inpatient, psychiatric, or counseling services, contributing to increasing individual dysfunction and financed by taxpayers. Kupers concludes his cogent presentation by suggesting strategies for a quantum shift in mindset (madness no longer seen as badness) to realize a climate of, at least, support for the basic constitutional and human rights of prisoners. Highly recommended for academics and professionals.ASuzanne W. Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Alfred
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"A passionately argued and brilliantly written wake-up call to America about the myriad ways our penal systems brutalize our entire culture. Dr. Kupers not only diagnoses the problem, he also offers a set of solutions. I hope this book will be read by all concerned citizens and voters, for it conveys truths that are vitally important to all of us." (James Gilligan, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and author of Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic)

"A chilling picture of how American prisons have become among the most barbaric in the world driving petty offAnders and dangerous people alike into madness. We must consider the madness of a public policy that routinely turns nonviolent offAnders into dangerous misfits who threaten our safety when released." (Joseph D. McNamara, research fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and retired police chief, San Jose, California)

"Dr. Kupers reminds us that cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of inmates-particularly those who are mentally ill-violates their rights, betrays our national commitment to decency, and jeopardizes the safety of our communities. A splendid book." (Jamie Fellner, associate counsel, Human Rights Watch)

"Prison Madness reveals the disturbing realities of prisons and jails as places of coerced refuge for poor and mentally disordered people. With this powerful and provocative analysis of the intersecting crises in the public mental health and prison systems, Terry Kupers shows us how to contest the racism and the criminalization of poverty that have helped to produce these dangerous dilemmas." (Angela Y. Davis, professor, University of California, Santa Cruz)

" . . . Kupers had free access and unfettered contacts that few outsiders are afforded, and has credibility that few outsiders can acquire." (Hans Toch, from the Foreword)

"Prison Madness--with its cogent analysis of our correctional system and the mental health crisis within it--can serve as a much-needed beacon." (Readings: A Journal of Reviews and Commentary in Mental Health)