P077 - Prison and mental illness: the challenge of including a gender perspective.

• In Event: Poster Session & Ice Cream Social

Abstract

The application of the RIMES instrument in different jurisdictions in Western developed countries has shown that a significant number of mentally ill inmates serve their sentences in regular correctional facilities. The closure of mental asylums in some countries, such as Italy or Spain, with the aim of avoiding the segregationist approach in the field of mental illness, has ended up transferring this segregation to the penitentiary sphere.

Some studies, such as that produced in the “Libro Blanco sobre la Atención Sanitaria a las personas con trastornos mentales graves en los centros penitenciarios de España” (2023), indicate that the incidence of common mental disorders is twice as high in the prison population as in the general population, while serious mental disorders are four times more common in this context. Going deeper and focusing only on women, we can see that the problem is much more widespread. According to some studies, the female prison population is five times more likely to experience a decline in mental health compared to the rest of the population (BRIGHT, A.M., HIGGINS, A., & GREALISH, A., 2023).

Therefore, the aim of this presentation is, on the one hand, to analyse the problem of mental illness in prison and, on the other hand, to point out the importance of applying a gender perspective to this situation in order to be able to address it with better results.

Author

• Cristina Palomino Jiménez, Phd Student at Universidad de Málaga