Correctional mental health providers face enormous challenges in identifying and treating the growing number of individuals with mental illness within their facilities. They must grapple with incomplete information on inmates, and the fact that incarceration may exacerbate symptoms and disrupt essential benefit programs. The Consensus Project suggests strategies to ensure the continuity of effective treatment of individuals with mental illness, through screening and appropriate information-sharing at intake and during the length of incarceration, and through collaborating with community corrections agencies and mental health providers outside of the correctional setting to prepare for the inmates' transition back into the community.

Though the Consensus Project encourages a systemic approach to improving the response to people with mental illness involved in the justice system, we recognize the need for correctional mental health providers to focus on the issues that most directly pertain to their roles. To that end, we recommend that they focus on the following sections: