Non Correctional Officer

Courtney, I agree with your statement of the criminal justice personnel are not equipped or trained to handle the mentally ill individuals. However, in my opinion, the state needs to separate the mentally ill from the non- mental ill offenders. Instead, the state is combining all the offenders together and it is draining the correctional officer because the Mental Health staff are only at our facility during the day shift. In the meantime, the correctional officer has to be the counselor the inmate until has calm down. This is something our legislature needs to put on the discussion table in order to find another alternative. Thank you for sharing your point of view in this