There’s now a special housing unit at a county jail in New York’s Hudson Valley to support mental health treatment.
The new Acute Mental Health Unit at the Westchester County Department of Correction is to support residents suffering from significant psychiatric impairment, who require intensive evaluation and treatment within a specialized mental health setting. The new unit is to help inmates with mental health concerns begin a path towards recovery using a range of clinical supports and services. The unit supports up to 12 residents. Wellpath is the correctional health care provider. Corrections Commissioner Joseph Spano says that serious mental illness has become so widespread in the U.S. corrections system that some jails and prisons are commonly referred to as the “new asylums.”
