MADRID, 22 (EUROPA PRESS)
The 41 per cent of the Spanish prison inmates suffer some kind of mental disorder, as it is taken from the PRECA study, led by the director of the area of hospitalization psychiatric Parc Sanitari Sant Joan of Deu of Barcelona, Dr. Enric Vicens. The specialist also assured during the presentation of this research work that “84 per cent has suffered from mental illness throughout his life”.
A trial of the specialist, the mental disorder “is any alteration of mental activity accompanied by a malaise and social and personal interference”. Some of the types of it are “the disorder of anxiety, the post-traumatic stress, the psychotic, the fóbico or the schizophrenic”, he says. However, considers that “there is a close relationship between them and drug use”.
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Currently, 17 percent of the inmates are sick by this habit, 23 percent because of anxiety, 15 percent by mood disorder and 4 percent by one of psychotic type”, underlines. Most consumed drugs within the prison “are cannabis and cocaine”, but what more regretted the expert is that the stay at the penitentiary “reduces but does not eliminate its consumption”.
The study, conducted in prisons of more than 1,000 internal communities of Madrid and Catalonia, Aragon,
Has served interviews 707 prisoners chosen at random and has been financed by the grant from the Fund for health research (FIS). During the process of analysis only been studied to men, that “the proportion of women is 9 to 1”, it qualifies Vicens.
Questionnaires, which have been validated by the international scientific community, have been carried out by psychologists and experts, and have yielded data that “anyone in a prison coexist 175 patients by causes of drugs, 80 by depression, 42 by psychotic disorder, 36 by one of obsessive type and 10 for bipolar disorder in a day”, says the Galen.
The prevalence is 5 times lower in the GENERAL population
Another conclusions taken from the research work is that the prevalence of mental illness in prisoners “is 5 times higher than in the general population, it is synthesized. In addition, patients taking drugs “have 3 times more chances of relapse,” data that it is it simmers up to 5 times more if the prisoner has served a sentence more than once.
For Vicens, “is necessary there are detection and psychiatric prison treatment programs”, glove that have picked up the spring Foundation and the Obra Social Caja Madrid, which signed Thursday an agreement to design a Plan of comprehensive care for persons with mental disorder severe prison within.
“Social work supports mental associations that is known the reality of these sick and bury certain stigmas,” assures Director in the area of Social and welfare action of Obra Social Caja Madrid, MarÃa Fernanda Ayán. For her, “you are trying to improve the early attention to reduce the rate of suicides” of these prisoners sick.
In addition, it considers fundamental to “integrate socially to these people, that only 5 percent of them have a regular job”. To do so, and to other social actions, this caja de ahorros works on 344 projects for which has invested € 50 million.
“Must be considered the cause-effect relationship” to mitigate A sentence
For his part, the President of the Board of Trustees of Fundación Manantial, Francisco sardine, explained that with the funds raised, “have developed programmes to train judges and prosecutors to the inadvertent on mental illness”. In reference to this, Dr. Vicens has indicated to Europa Press that risk of simulation of disease to mitigate a sentence “always there”, but stressed that “it must discriminate her”.
In his opinion, the judge “may request an expert assessment carried out by psychiatrists at the suspicion of mental disorder”. However, considers that “it is important that the mental state is in connection with the criminal act, which is causal”.
Regarding the current situation of ownership of responsibility for sick prisoners, sardine reminded us that “the Government and the autonomous communities did not find a consensus in the previous legislature”. For this reason, demand that the new Executive undertaken this task.
Finally, the Deputy Director of treatment and prison management of penitentiary institutions, Javier Nistal, has considered that right thing is “to combine the resources of the different administrations”. In his view, all practitioners of the prison “must have responsibility with these inmates” and, after serving the sentence, “it is important they are referred to health centres to enable their social integration”. Thus “would reduce social and economic costs that would avoid to relapse back to,” he concludes.
