Recovering Inside? Ethics in Correctional Mental Health Care

A shadow health care system now exists behind bars in the US, with a substantial amount of behavioral health care delivered there.

There are approximately 2.6 million people incarcerated in the US, which equates, by far, to the world’s highest incarceration rate (~700/100,000 people). It is estimated that 50% of inmates of jails and prisons have a mental illness, and 15-20% have a serious mental illness. 

By convening an interdisciplinary research group that includes bioethicists, clinicians, prison reform advocates, and (at least) one former inmate, we will develop a novel line of bioethics research to examine ethics and policy questions in correctional mental health care.

This project is funded by the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania

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Ethics Track at the 2019 American Psychiatric Association's Annual Meeting

The ScattergoodEthics Program, in collaboration with the APA Ethics Committee and St. Elizabeth's Hospital, has organized and sponsored a multi-session ethics track for the Annual Meeting of the APA.  The 2019 ethics track includes sessions led by nationally and globally renowned scholars, including:

The Prodromal Schizophrenia Empirical and Ethical Nexus (PSEEN) Initiative

The PSEEN Initiative aims to indentify and examine ethical and policy issues generated by rapidly advancing technoligies that will allow early detection and possibly prevention of psychosis spectrum disorders.  

In partnership with the Neuropsychiatry Section in Penn's Department of Psychiatry, we will approach these issues along two research tracks: empirical bioethics and normative analysis.

Key problems to be addressed by this initiative will be to clarify the concept of prodromal psychosis and examine derivative ethical challenges, such as appropriate disclosure of risk information, mitigating stigma, and respecting the autonomy of adolescents as transitional decision makers.

The PSEEN Initiative is supported a grant from the Greenwall Foundation.

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About Us

The Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care (ScattergoodEthics) is housed within the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.  

ScattergoodEthics is dedicated to education, research, and resource development for the field of psychiatric, mental, and behavioral healthcare ethics. The program engages in scholarly research, trains and educates clinicians and scholars in mental and behavioral healthcare ethics, sponsors programs and public events, and promotes and advocates for greater attention to the ethical dimensions of diagnosis and treatment.  ScattergoodEthics is funded in large part by the Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation. 

Visit the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy

In the News

WHYY | "N.J. bill calls for treatment over jail time for criminal defendants with mental illness" | May 7, 2018 | Read the Article

The Daily Pennsylvanian | "Why Trump's comments on mental health have drawn attention to a Penn professor's work" | March 15, 2018 | Read the Article

The New York Times | "Trump Wants More Asylums — and Some Psychiatrists Agree" | March 5, 2018 | Read the Article

The Atlantic | "Trump's Call for Mental Institutions Could Be Good" | February 23, 2018 | Read the Article

The Philadelphia Inquirer | Why should behavioral health care be any different? | June 29, 2016 | Read Article

WHYY's The Pulse | We're at a point of historic reckoning on standards for behavioral health care | June 17, 2016 | Listen

New York Times | Psychiatric Institutions Are a Necessity | May 9, 2016 | Read Essay

Past Events

MARCH 23, 2017 | Grand Rounds in Psychiatry, Steven Sharfstein: "The Case for Caring Coercion" | The University of Pennsylvania

FEBRUARY 8, 2017 | Ground Rounds in Psychiatry, Dominic Sisti: "Bioethics Behind Bars: Addressing the Mental Health Care Crisis in Jails and Prisons" | Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine

DECEMBER 21, 2016 | Research Seminar in Population Health, Dominic Sisti: "Bioethics Behind Bars: Ethical Challenges in Jail and Prision Mental Health Care" | NYU Langone School of Medicine

APRIL 21, 2016 | Grand Rounds in Psychiatry: Giving Aslyum? Ethical Issues in Long-Term Psychiatric Care | The University of Pennsylvania

JANUARY 21, 2016  | Giving Asylum? The Ethics of Long-Term Care for People with Severe Mental Illness | The Institute of Living, Hartford Hospital | Hartford, CT

JULY 22, 2015 | A Debate on Treating Mental Illness: Should We Bring Back Asylums? | The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco |  Listen