Topic > Lucky's Dream Analysis - 885

I remember standing there as I watched the judge, the prosecution, and the defense try to secure a facility with a vacancy to hold a defendant who was awaiting a psychological evaluation. This situation was all too familiar to the one depicted in Lucky's Dream: Part One: Waiting. As stated in the VPR broadcast, State Of Mind: Mental Health & Corrections: Is Incarceration an Alternative to Psychiatric Treatment by Jane Lindholm, “For people who have been charged but not yet convicted of a crime…These are people who have been processed- ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation… Right now, the Brattleboro retreat takes that population. But they often don't go to the Brattleboro retreat because it's full. Instead, they're stuck in prison." ) How should we treat those defendants, like Lucky, when we don't understand who they are, where they came from and the path that brought them to that courtroom, if we treat them like another defendant, one who does not suffer from psychological problems, how will they behave correctly in our correctional system? By placing them among the general population, we leave our correctional facilities to inmates who do not have the necessary training