There are numerous problems connected to the responsibilities of incarceration facilities when it comes to the psychological reasoning of offenders. First of all, these amenities have to deal with budget expansions that negatively affect the make-up of the incarceration facilities because the latter have to spend more money in order to establish the functioning of the organization in a way that is compatible with the needs of mentally ill inmates (Bartol & Bartol, 2015). Second, incarceration facilities may experience the lack of space needed to keep these mentally ill convicts safe and organized. This creates a limitation for the criminal justice system in terms of the poor decision-making associated with resource allocation and staff assignments. In addition to this, incarceration facilities have the need for experts in psychology that may critically influence the inmates in a number of different ways (including the design of treatment plans).
It is also a rather common situation when the providers of correctional services display bias when dealing with mentally ill prisoners (Bartol & Bartol, 2015). Mostly, their interaction with these inmates can be described as an ineffective dialog that does not trigger any positive outcomes. On a bigger scale, mentally ill inmates may be left in prison for many years without being assisted, even though a rather reasonable number of inmates can and should be helped with their illnesses (Bartol & Bartol, 2015). In this case, correctional service providers limit themselves in terms of the interaction with prisoners, and this kind of idleness may lead to a set of negative outcomes rather than leave the existing state of affairs unchanged. This is why it is regularly recommended to keep knowledgeable psychologists around as they can easily identify any transpiring issues that can be harmful to both the correctional service providers and inmates (Forbes, 2016).
Another way to approach the problems described above is to incorporate exogenous and endogenous models of development in this discussion. For instance, the Solow model is much more focused on the external factors that may influence the existing state of affairs in the organization. On a bigger scale, these factors are also seen as the key predictors of the future economic growth of any given facility that applied this model (Bartol & Bartol, 2015). Therefore, one of the things that can significantly impact the outlooks of correctional service providers is technological progress. Contrarily to the postulates of exogenous models, their endogenous counterparts (for instance, AK model) emphasized the importance of human capital (Shanafelt & Pino, 2015). The connection between having a psychologist within correctional settings and applying an endogenous model is evident. It can also be stated that the latter brings more value to the inmates’ environment because it makes the most out of the human capital (Forbes, 2016).
Overall, it can be concluded that the behaviors of law enforcement personnel should not be dependent on the mental health of inmates. Instead, the limitations inherent in these relationships should be mitigated by professional psychologists and counselors that will be able to come up with a solution to any given problem that transpires within the psychological area of the criminal justice field. Hiring a set of all-around knowledgeable employees is the best intervention that currently exists. The only bottleneck is the budget of the incarceration facility, meaning that if the amount of money is insufficient, hiring the best workers will not be among the available options.
References
Bartol, A., & Bartol, C. (2015). Introduction to forensic psychology: Research and application (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Forbes, R. (2016). Criminal psychology: Understanding the criminal mind and its nature through criminal profiling. New York, NY: Kimmers Publishing.
Shanafelt, R., & Pino, N. (2015). Rethinking serial murder, spree killing and atrocities: Beyond the usual distinctions. London, UK: Routledge.