Avery Zimmerman

Dr. Martin

PS1010 Section 506

29 March 2017

The Success of the Turning Point Program

In the United States, 56% of state prisoners are considered to be mentally ill. (James,

Doris). In order to be able to understand and communicate to others what is considered to be

mentally ill, it is important to create a precise definition. (Kraft). The definition of mentally ill

that the Bureau of Justice Statistics uses includes two measures. One of the measures is the

inmate has a history of or is currently showing symptoms of a mental health problem. The

second measure is that the prisoner must have received a clinical diagnosis by or received

treatment from a mental health professional. (James, Doris). The specific problem that my group

is addressing is specific to women inmates. 73% of women in prison have mental health issues.

This rate is much higher than the rate of mentally ill men, which is 55%. (James, Doris).

Our problem has to do with the fact there are not enough mental health treatment within

prisons that are specific to women. Women inmates are more likely than males to enter jail with

histories involving substance abuse, psychological functioning, and sexual and physical abuse.

(Messina). These women will respond to mental health treatment different than males, however

non gender neutral mental health treatment in prisons is rare. Most services are developed for

men. These women are often released back into their communities receiving little treatment for

their mental illness. This is why this problem matters. In a study conducted by the Vera Institute

of Justice, in the 40 states that participated in the study, the average cost of prisons in 2010 was

$39 billion. (Santora). We could cut this cost by reducing the rate of recidivism of inmates. If we
confront the root issues of mental illness within females and allow them access to gender specific

programs that address their mental health problems, we can reduce the rate of recidivism and

thus cut the amount of money we spend on prisons.

One significant effort to reduce the number of mentally ill in prisons by the government

was the creation of mental health courts. Mental health courts were created under the Justice and

Mental Health Collaboration program. (James, Nathan). The point of mental health courts is to

prevent the incarceration of the mentally ill by moving them to community services or reduce

their time spent in prison. Judges are in charge of overseeing the treatment. (Mental Health

Courts). However, mental health courts in different states vary in separate aspects. For example,

the intensity of supervision, program duration, and type of treatment vary between states. (James,

Nathan). Mental health courts cannot be the sole effort in treating this problem because they are

not available in every jurisdiction and some mentally ill can slip through the cracks. Other efforts

the prison system has experimented with to address mental health are a waste of resources. For

example, many prisons decided to build separate psychiatric prison hospitals to place the

mentally ill. The building of these hospitals cost large amounts to build but have little evidence

of success. (Mental Health Services for Prisoners).

The failure of mental health courts to prevent the jailing of all mentally ill is why our

prison system needs better mental health treatments within prison. One particular effort to solve

this solution is in the Columbia River Correctional Facility in Portland, Oregon. The Oregon

Department of Corrections runs a treatment program called Alternative Incarceration Program.

It is comprised of 3 separate programs, but the specific success I am focusing on is the Turning

Point Program because it focuses on female inmates. The Turning Point Treatment Program is

for fifty inmates, many of whom are dually diagnosed. Dual diagnosis is when the inmate has a
mentally disorder and an addiction to drugs or alcohol. (Dual Diagnosis). It is important to treat

mental illness along with substance abuse. Many programs ignore the mental health aspect to

substance abuse offenders. For example, there was a study done on the correlation between

women who have been abused and their use of alcohol, marijuana, prescription drugs, sedatives,

and opioids. The women who had been abused were more likely to abuse these substances.

(Walker). In recent studies, it has been found that a considerable number of female prisoners

have experienced trauma and abuse. (Bloom). This makes women in prison more likely to have

substance abuse issues paired with mental illness due to trauma or abuse.

The inmates that they take in the program received a score of .2 or above for their

automated criminal recovery score. The score they receive on this test shows the probability that

an inmate will return to prison within 3 years after release. (ACRS). The Turning Point

Treatment Program takes people with higher scores so they can go through the treatment and

reduce the risk of recidivism. The inmates go through a six-month program where their entire

day is structured and they receive 20 hours of therapeutic contact each week. The inmates in the

program are there for the last six months of their incarceration. The goal of this program is to

treat womens mental health and substance abuse, while also preparing them to go back into their

communities after their sentence is over. (Turning Point Treatment Program). This program is

considered a distributive policy because payments are collected from many citizens, but it

directly benefits only a few. (Openstax). This is true because the taxpayers of Oregon pay for

these programs, but the inmates are the only ones directly benefiting. However, it is arguable that

the taxpayers would benefit in the long run because of the reduced recidivism rates and the

increase in public safety.

 This program is considered a success because of Oregons low recidivism rate. For

prisoners released in 2004, Oregon had the lowest recidivism rates out of the all the states.

Oregons recidivism rate in 2004 was 22.8% when the national average was 43.3%. (Pew Center

on the States). The fact that Oregon has such low recidivism rates in comparison to states where

they dont offer Alternative Incarceration Programs like the Turning Point Program shows the

success of a treatment program to address mental health. The Turning Point Program specifically

has been successful in giving women the tools they need to succeed outside of prison and avoid

going back.

The structural barriers that this solution effort faced was to get funding through the

Oregon Department of Corrections. An important tool for learning more about the structural

problems of getting legislation passed is to harness the power of real people and to use find

members of my community that have a stake in my issue. (Graham). I had the opportunity to

meet with Michigan Representative Martin Howrylak about this social problem. I asked him

about potential problems that could arise if policy for this social problem was introduced to

legislature. His answer was that the hardest part would be allocating funds for programs such as

the Turning Point Program. He stressed that our budget was stretched thin and finding funds

would be a difficult task. The structural barriers that Representative Howrylak addressed in our

conversation are the exact problems that Oregon faced while trying to get this legislation faced.

People who opposed the bill thought that the government was spending too much on prisons and

too little on education.

However, this particular success story managed to overcome these boundaries based on

the success of the pilot program that proceeded it. The Summit Program was the first Alternative

Incarceration Program introduced in Oregon in 1994. It did not focus on mental health, but
instead of substance abuse and preparing inmates for life outside of prison. (DOC Operations

Division: Prison SCCI Oregon SUMMIT Program). In 2003, Oregon Legislature passed Senate

Bill 267. This bill said that the Oregon Department of Corrections would spend more money on

Evidence-Based Practices. (Evidence-Based Practices in Oregon). Evidence-Based Practices are

a prevention or treatment practice that has continuous scientific research that proves it is

successful. (Operational Definition for Evidence-Based Practices). The Summit Program was

considered an Evidence-Based Practice, so the Oregon Department of Corrections were able to

expand upon the program to include the New Directions Program and the Turning Point

Program. The Turning Point Program managed to overcome structural barriers because of the

success of the program that came before it. The Summit Program was a pilot program that was

proved successful, allowing it to be expanded.

The success of this effort can be used to justify adding funding to Michigans prisons to

implement programs and prison systems similar to those in Oregon. Providing gender specific

treatment programs that focus on mental health paired, if needed, with substance abuse, in

prisons has proved successful in Oregon and can be successful if implemented in Michigan. In

transferring this program to Michigan, we should try and emulate the exact program of the

Turning Point Program. It has been proved through research to benefit the community and the

individual and is why it is considered an Evidence-Based Program. This example shows my

group that it is possible to allocate funding for treatment plans within prisons, which is a

structural barrier that these programs in Michigan face. The success of this program have proved

to reduce recidivism rates, which is why implementing these programs are so important.
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