Abysmal isn't it. Economic boom times, government with a big surplus from too much collected tax. At least the private companies managing our prisons are laughing all the way to the bank.

On the Gold Coast the very much needed increased places for the mentally ill came at the cost of another group of people with little voice. The terminally ill needing palliative care. Now a very good unit with highly qualified and dedicated staff is pretty well decimated. It was moved. The consultant physician resigned and most of the very experienced nursing staff have gone or are leaving.

Until Australians start demanding that provision of health care is not to be a political issue from which political mileage can be made, measures will only be stop gap meant to alleviate an immediate unpalatable situation with possible adverse political consequences. As it is there is no political benefit in planning and committing money for the long term where real results may only become noticeable long after another party has been voted in.

Interesting. The gatton prison is going to be quite a facility.

When the Department of Corrective Services (DCS) briefed Councils on the issue, the proposal was for a 4,000 bed prison with 1750 staff (to start out smaller, but expand to this over a decade).

As they started copping flak for constructing what would be among Australia's largest prisons, the State Government then claimed it would only be for 3,000 prisoners.
Yet, staff remained at 1750. This begs the question of how sincere the government was in stating 3,000 prisoners.

It was also interesting insofar as consultation only began with the Gatton community once it was determined that the prison was going to be built there, with Minister Judy Spence ruling out any other locations.

Says quite a lot about what the State government considers to be consultation.

I have discussed with the author about the question "The rates of schizophrenia amongst males and females is about the same (1.2 to 1), so why are so many males with schizophrenia put in jail." Here is our response:

This is a complex issue and there is no easy answer. Not only are more males are affected, but they usually get a more severe form and they get it earlier.

One of the reasons that females are generally able to manage onset of schizophrenia better than males is that the male brain does not mature until age 25: the relative loss in cognitive function/executive decision-making is therefore disproportionate.

Also, people with complex unmet needs respond differently.
Scenario1: The first family asks for direction as to whether they should call the police because their son is acting out and has threatened his mother with a knife and demanded an inheritance. If they call the police, perhaps he would end up in jail…
Scenario 2: The second family says that their daughter has disappeared, again. They do not have any intention of calling the police or anything like that. They are worried that she may be hungry and cold. They know she will come back and then she will lock herself in her bedroom; as has happened many, many times.
In the second case, it is not likely that this woman will end up in jail; while in the first case there is every chance that the young man will add to the statistics of mentally ill males in prison.

Herlina
Thank you for the answer.

What you are suggesting may be similar to autism, where there are now some thoughts that boys can develop forms of autism up to 15 times more often than girls. But autism in boys is normally less severe, or if a girl develops autism, then it occurs less often but can be much more severe.

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=255&a=3370

So in this situation, the autism in a boy can be regarded as misbehaviour, and some might think he is misbehaving because he is a boy.

If the boy with a milder form of autism was going to school for example, then he might be regarded as a misbehaving student, but if a girl had a much more severe form of autism, then it may be so debilitating that she may not be able to go to school at all, and it is not noticed so much by the general public

Although not an expert in mental illness, I would imagine that jail would not be a suitable place to treat schizophrenia or most other forms of mental (or physical) illness, and quite likely to make the condition worse.

So upon release, they could be involved in more crime or some form of antisocial behaviour, resulting in them being sent back to jail.

Thank you HRS for your comment, which Herlina and I have discussed.

Certainly the misreading of others is a feature of people with sz; moreso than for the average person. This can interfere with their social functioning and get them into all sorts of trouble.

In the autistic disorders spectrum, that part of the brain which reads social inputs can be mildly to severely impaired.

Some research into the severity of sz in males can be found at http://www.schizophrenia.com/research/szmen2000.htm