Advancing Corrections Journal - Edition #12 - Innovation in Correctional Healthcare (ACJ12-A007)
Abstract
Treatment-refractory psychosis and self-injurious and aggressive behaviors are prevalent problems in American prisons. The antipsychotic medication clozapine, approved in the United States for treatment-resistant schizophrenia and reduction in suicide risk for people with a psychotic illness, is highly evidence-based but underused in correctional settings. This paper provides a brief overview of mental illness and incarceration in the United States and reviews clozapine’s indications, benefits, and risk monitoring. We review the use of clozapine in correctional settings and then provide an overview of a prison-academic partnership between the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine which has led to a nearly 400% increase in clozapine prescribing over five years. Similar partnerships can be a model for other prison systems to expand clozapine use and other evidence-based practices.
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