Forensic & Law Enforcement Facilities

• Fulfill Federal, state, and local regulatory obligations to identify and respond to serious mental health needs of inmates
• Avoid legal liability from delayed evaluation and intervention
• Evaluations within one hour
• Reduced risk to staff and other inmates from suicidal, homicidal and aggressive inmates
• Cost-efficient, just-in-time psychiatric services to meet unpredictable demand

Click here for a PubMed article on the effectiveness of using telepsychiatry in a prison setting.

JSA Health Case Study

Juvenile Justice Programs Across Texas

Recent research has established that a large proportion of youth involved with the juvenile justice system in this country have significant mental health problems. Findings from a number of mental health prevalence studies conducted within the lastfive years among youth in a variety of juvenile justice settings—community-based, detention, corrections— are remarkably consistent. Approximately 65 percent to 70 percent of youth in the juvenile justice system have a diagnosable mental health disorder. Further, the results from a recent multi-state, multi-site mental health study conducted for theOffice of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) indicate that the percentage of youth in the juvenile justice system experiencing severe mental health disorders is even higher than was previously thought.

Severe mental disorders were thought to be found among approximately 20 percent of youth in juvenile justice settings. The results of the most recent studies suggest a figure closer to 27 percent, indicating that more than one quarter of all youth in the juvenile justice system are in significant need of mental health treatment. These new studies on the prevalence of mental health disorders among the juvenile justice population have helped spur the development and application of new responses to help the field better identify and respond to these youth.

JSA Health Telepsychiatry strongly feels that making psychiatric services available to adolescents in within the  Juvenile Justice system is a major priority of our company. JSA Health has identified three programs in the last year.

• Cornerstone Program in Post, Texas
• Esmund Juvenile Justice Center in Texas City, Texas
• The High Frontier in Ft. Davis, Texas

There are more than 65 Juvenile Justice facilities across Texas, most in rural areas. JSA Health Telepsychiatry provides a cost effective way for these facilities to purchase the number of psychiatrist hours they need per month for regualar clinics, while having available 24/7 capacity to call JSA Health for stat consults in crisis situations. The result is that JSA Health assists with:

• Identifying youth who may have mental health problems requiring attention—to avoid those problems getting worse
• Reducing the risk of self-harm by identifying youth who present an imminent risk of suicide or self-injury
• Identifying youth with potential substance use problems that require immediate attention
• Increasing safety for youth and staff of the program by identifying youth whose mental health problems present an imminent risk of harm to self or others
• Obtaining mental health information as part of a program of diversion of youth to community services that might best meet their ongoing mental health needs and public safety interests
• Identifying youth who require further assessment to determine whether they might have longer-range treatment needs that should be taken into consideration in disposition planning
• Documenting the level of need for mental health services in your program by developing screening-based data on all youth admitted to the program
• Fulfilling Federal, state, or local regulatory obligations to identify and respond to serious mental health needs of youth in juvenile justice custody
• Avoiding legal liability associated with youths’ injurious behaviors that might have been avoided if mental health screening had been in place