NORTH CAROLINA DIVISION OF PRISONS
MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

MENTAL HEALTH DAY TREATMENT SERVICES

The North Carolina Department of Correction provides day treatment services and structured programming for inmates with chronic but less severe mental illnesses who do not require placement in a residential or inpatient mental health treatment facility. These day treatment programs focus on creating an understanding of the inmate's mental illness, the necessary methods for managing their illness, training of appropriate work, personal, and prosocial behavior, and combating the debilitating effects of chronic mental illness on thought process and the quality of life.

Many of these inmates have committed crimes and are in prison because of diminished judgment and reasoning abilites and their inability to delay gratification attributable to a progressive mental illness. In some cases the inmate may be developmentally disabled or intellectually disadvantaged and require continual monitoring of assignments and structuring of all their daily activities in order to function effectively. Just as in the community, without this structure and direction they become problems to others and may become involved in criminal activites which result in their being locked-up in isolation. If steps are not taken to create acceptable problem-solving and behavioral alternatives while they are in prison, when released these same problems are likely to bring them back to prison in the future.

The Department maintains two day training programs for male felon inmates. Inmates who have long-standing mental illnesses but who do not have a primary diagnosis of developmental disability are housed at the Brown Creek Correctional Institution near Polkton, NC. Inmates who have a primary diagnosis of developmental disability are housed at the Pender Correctional Institution in Burgaw, NC. Female inmates who meet either criteria above are housed at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh, NC.

Treatment activities include individual and group psychotherapy, psychotropic medication education and administration, horticulture, basic woodworking and simple carpentry training, industrial sewing, arts and crafts, and various prison enterprise work assignments in which the inmates perform jobs or produce products that support the operation of the Department. The intent of the program is to keep the inmates active, productive, and engaged in appropriate physical and mental activity while teaching prosocial behavior and acceptable social responses.

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