Grief associated with a prison experience: counseling the client.
With our constantly overcrowded prisons taxing the efforts of all helping personnel and increasing the already high rates of recidivism, perhaps it would benefit counselors and nurses to look to the adjustment process of new inmates as a field of endeavor. Facilitating the adjustment process might enhance the movement of a costly, dependent ward of the state to a contributing member of society. And what better time than during the initial crisis state of newly admitted offenders to intervene and, hopefully, help them through their "grief work," help them deal with their losses when their needs are so great and when they are deprived of previous negative influences. Maureen Chaisson (1981) says that the correctional institution is the last frontier for the health care system and states that the biggest single question in corrections today is, "How do we provide mental health services?" (Chaisson, 1981, p. 736). The newly admitted inmate, as demonstrated here, is in a state of crisis and is suffering grief and experiencing losses not unlike those traditionally ministered to by nurses. Providing the needed counseling and helping the client through his "grief work" might demonstrate to that inmate new ways of dealing with feelings and situations that perhaps contributed to his incarceration. If the offender is supported initially, perhaps adjustment might be smoother, frustrations minimized, and eventual return to society characterized by a higher level of functioning. At the very least, the offender who is suffering loss is entitled to health care by the Bill of Rights. This health care includes mental health services--and counseling the client through the initial grief is certainly a good place to begin.
D000328:Adult; D003376:Counseling; D003419:Crisis Intervention; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology*; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing