Mental Health Conditions in California Prisons
Category: Research Poster
Author(s): Elena Crooks
Presenter(s): Elena Crooks
Mentors(s): Jessica Harney
Prison overcrowding has been a weighty and controversial issue in the United States for many years. The increase of violence and health issues has raised a lot of concern about the way that the incarcerated individuals are treated while in the prisons. The more overcrowded a prison is, the less access to resources the inmates have. Additionally, the inmates are not the only people affected by these conditions. The prison staff and workers have felt a great amount of stress and burnout from working in the overcrowded prisons. I became interested in studying this issue when I began my position as a research assistant with CSU Professor Jessie Harney. Professor Harney is studying a multitude of factors related to prison overcrowding across thirty-three different prisons in California. In collaboration with Professor Harney, I will present an exploratory correlational analysis of the mental health conditions of these prisons in California. I will explore how the percentage of the prison capacity that is filled correlates with three specific outcomes in the prisons: sexual misconduct, attempted suicides, and suicides.