Executives from the California Board of Parole Hearings visited San Quentin Rehabilitation Center recently to talk about the importance of mental wellness.
Board of Parole Hearings executive officer Jennifer Shaffer spoke to a crowd of potential parolees in the chapel as part of a week of events in September put on by San Quentin’s mental health department during Suicide Prevention Week.
“For those of you who were in prison 20 years ago, I’m sorry,” Shaffer said. “You all were here during the really dark days and I’m not proud of what the board did during those days. You felt you had no hope, but that was our culture at the time.”
Shaffer told the crowd that her job since she took over at her position in 2011 has been to professionalize the board and make it the best it can be.
“Today, one out of every three people are granted parole during their initial parole hearings,” she said.
“Prisoners don’t get denied parole dates because they have a mental health problem, they’re denied because they don’t seek help,” she said. “Seeking help in prison is a good indicator you’ll seek it in the community.”
But the reality is that help in the form of mental health therapy is a difficult thing to receive in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
According to a report by the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit that does research on issues that affect people who are incarcerated, almost 400,000 people in state and federal prison have chronic mental health problems. More than 41% of people experiencing severe psychological distress in state and federal prison have not received any mental health treatment for more than a year or longer.
California prisons are under a federal receivership due to failed medical and mental health services.
This failure to treat is consistent with PPI’s report that said, “More than one third (34%) of people who had been taking prescription medication for a mental health condition at the time of their offense had not received their medication since entering the prison system.”
According to a survey done by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics on state and federal prison populations, not only are mental health conditions common in jails and prisons, but more people are facing chronic mental health conditions in particular; the proportion of people in prison with chronic mental health conditions nearly doubled from 2004 to 2016 (14% to 27%).
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