The corrections department: the forgotten branch of the mental health system.

The Hawaii Department of Corrections (DOC), like other corrections systems throughout the nation, struggles with problems arising from incarcerating mentally ill prisoners and detainees. The incarcerated population of mentally ill persons burgeoned as mental hospital inmates were "deinstitutionalized" during the 1960s and 1970s. However, correctional facilities, particularly jails, became alternative institutions for mentally ill persons when communities were unprepared to provide required services. Correctional facilities were equally unprepared to manage seriously disabled mentally ill (SDMI) inmates, but the facilities provided a dumping ground for a community's undesirables. Out of sight, out of mind!