Ending the Inmate Shuffle: An Intermediate Care Program for Inmates with a Chronic Mental Illness

Severely mentally ill inmates are more likely than other inmates to adjust poorly to prison life and to be caught in a “revolving door” of hospitalization, discharge, and readmission. The Social Skills Day Training Program is a 78-bed, structured, intensive psychosocial rehabilitation program that uses an empirically validated curriculum to teach illness management, social, and coping skills for successful integration into the regular prison population or community. Over the past ten years, the program has admitted 700 inmates from the North Carolina prison system. In 2002, 81% of the 63 participants discharged were transferred to prison outpatient units or were paroled. The program offers promise as a cost-effective, intermediate alternative to inpatient and outpatient care.