INTEGRATING COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES INTO LOCAL JAILS: A POLICY PERSPECTIVE

Across t h e nation, the number o f mentally ill inmates in local jails has increased over the past decade. Moreover, mentally ill inmates are not typically receiving adequate services from either the jail or mental health service systems. In response to the problem, several jurisdictions are attempting to utilize community mental health (CMH) services to provide treatment for these inmates. This paper discusses organizational problems inherent to integrating CMH services into jails and recommends approaches for dealing with those problems. Much of the information and thinking in this paper is based upon the recent experience of the authors with the Michigan Department of Mental Health and local jails as trainers and consultants in integrating CMH workers into jail settings.     

THE STATUTORY CORPORATION—A NOTE ON THE THEORY OF AUTONOMY

Readers of this journal, especially those who watch developments affecting the machinery of government in Canberra, will no doubt have noticed the rehabilitation of the concept of statutory independence—a notion that, in some academic circles, had been virtually written off as having little or no relevance in the real world, where the general tendency has been towards an extension of government control and co-ordination of bureaucratic systems. Although it is much too early to evaluate, with suitable scholarly detachment, the significance of the administrative changes initiated since December, 1972, it seems a safe observation that for a small group of government agencies at least, the Labor Government has committed itself to the idea of independence. This much is clear from its declared aim of giving the Australian Broadcasting Commission more autonomy and the decision, recently announced, to reconstitute the Postmaster-General's Department into two separate statutory corporations.     

"DOWN THERE ON A VISIT" SOUTHERN AFRICA TWENTYFIVE YEARS ON

Leonie Lichtenstein was born and educated in South Africa. She taught at schools and at the University of Witwatersrand and was for a period a full-time organiser for the Liberal Party in South Africa. She lived in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) from 1957–1962, where she and her husband became involved in the struggle against white minority rule. She moved with her family to England in 1962 where she was a lecturer in English at Goldsmith's College, University of London, and also active in community relations and as a governor of schools and higher education colleges.
In 1988 she returned to South Africa to give the keynote address to the Association of University English Teachers of South Africa on Literature and Politics. The present article stems from that visit. Soon after completing it, on 10 May 1989, she died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 58. She had completed a novel shortly before her death.