Behind six barbed fences, 11 steel doors and nine armed guards, an empty, concrete room sits available for its next occupant who will be strapped to a board on the floor and carefully watched through closed-circuit video.

The scene isn't from a terrorist's prison cell at Guantanamo Bay. In fact, it isn't even a scenario of intended harm at all, but a safety measure that Utah Corrections officials say is necessary for protecting those who don't belong at the Point of the Mountain facility in the first place.

"We have one guard to every 400 prisoners here, so it's tough, but we do the best we can with our resources to protect the mentally ill from being harmed or harming themselves," said Jack Ford, Utah Corrections Department spokesman. "We can't force them to take their medicine, though, or even give them the needed attention they demand."

The U.S. Department of Justice recently estimated that more than half of U.S. prisoners suffer from some type of mental illness, but the statistic has drawn local and widespread criticism for its broad definition of mental illness.

Ford disagreed with the estimation, calling the more-than-half number "a bit dramatic."

National backlash about the Justice Department's report also came from several mental illness advocate groups like the Treatment Advocacy Center, which in a news release accused the Justice Department of "trivializing" the illness by clustering inmates who often experience feelings of depression with inmates who are professionally diagnosed with a mental illness.

Prisoners are, of course, going to have feelings of depression because of their imprisonment but shouldn't officially be categorized as mentally ill, the Treatment Advocacy Center stated the news release.

The debate about where to draw the line between the mentally ill and the socially accepted may continue indefinitely with some but has stopped at Ford. For him, the primary problem isn't how many mentally ill are living under lockdown but why they are there in the first place.

"The real mentally ill shouldn't even be in prison, but there's nowhere else to send them," Ford said. "These guys don't need punitive, hardcore officers guarding them. They need to be in a better facility where there's people to look after them."

Ford said 650 mentally ill prisoners, 100 of them "severely retarded," are sitting in cells in which they don't belong.

The mentally ill face the challenge of abusive cellmates who often take advantage of their weakness. Most of the abuse cases are personal item thefts but can be as severe as sexual assault, Ford said.

The same abuse cases would rarely happen in a state mental hospital where a staff may be as numerous as 1 to every 20 patients.

Utah County Jail reports fewer abuse cases, which officials attribute to direct supervision. The jail holds 620 inmates, and officials say the facility has the same percentage of mentally ill as the prison - 15 to 20 percent, or about 120 prisoners.

"Our inmates are inmates in the same room with a deputy, so mistreatment is rarer than at the prison, where guards stand and watch from the end of corridors," said Dale Bench, the jail's correctional health service director. "But it still occurs, and that, among other reasons, is why this isn't the best place for the mentally ill."

Prisons and jails may be two different worlds for the mentally ill, but officials from both facilities agree neither are a fitting home. Officials were also unanimous on something else: Both say more money is the solution.

Even heath professionals outside towering prison walls and jails of rigid steel bars agree with the notion that additional funding would help a problem that may, in the future, be a shameful history lesson for society to look back on.

Dr. Ted Terry, a psychologist for Provo's Wasatch Mental Health, said he believes the system has failed to recognize a perpetual crisis that has been tucked away in cement cells because it's cheaper than allowing the problem to be cured by professionals.

He said housing the mentally ill elsewhere may be a burdensome expense but counters it with his own belief that it wouldn't be unworthy of its cause.

"It's really a bottom-line issue," Terry said. "Many end up in prison not because of a serious crime but because of some bizarre action, and it's too expensive to send them where they can get help. So we get what we have now: people in the wrong place, without the funds to rescue them."

If money is the solution to build additional facilities, pay extra health professionals and provide more medicines, many wonder why more of it isn't being funded.

The prison has continually requested supplemental funding from the Utah Legislature for its already allocated $17 million-a-year budget for the mentally ill, but the prison would need a figure "10 times that" to provide the penned-up mentally ill what they require, Ford said.

Terry agreed with Ford's belief but put his own thought differently: "The legislature gives prisons and jails a certain amount of money, and it's like trying to cover a bed with a blanket that's too small, it just won't work," he said. "Everybody's tugging at the corners."

Even if money is unanimously dubbed as the solution for helping those already sentenced to the system, it won't rescue the mentally ill from getting there to begin with. But a new court program, already in play, might be the solution.

Provo is home to a new, one-year-old Mental Health Court program that doesn't merely judge and sentence the mentally ill who have committed a crime but counsels and encourages them, too.

Candidates for the program are chosen after they are screened by the 4th District Court. The mentally ill offenders are then ordered to serve a one-year probation; they must also meet together every Wednesday.

"Every one of them shows up - at least 99 percent," Terry said. "It's very successful at keeping them out of where they know they could go [prison]."

After each court session, everyone in the court applauds, even the bailiff and the court judge.

"Then the judge says 'Good job Joe,'" Terry said. The judge "knows them by name, he knows their family and their goals. It's a personal experience."

The clapping, however, should not be mistaken for flippancy. The charges, court orders and the warrants are as bona fide as the court's authority to carry out sentences if necessary, Terry said.

"It's not the solution to every ill person's needs - some still need to be locked up," Terry said. "But it's a better alternative than sticking all of them where there's no real help and serving them only penalties and punishments."

Copyright Brigham Young University 27 Sep 2006