BEIRUT, Lebanon, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Hundreds of people who committed crimes in Lebanon while suffering from a mental disorder end up in prison and not in treatment, doctors and activists say.
A 2010 World Health Organization study on the Lebanese mental health care system found that 6 percent to 10 percent of inmates in the country's prisons suffer from psychosis, The Daily Star of Beirut reported Tuesday.
At the Roumeih prison, only a handful of prisoners are being treated in the psychiatric ward, known as the Blue House, the newspaper said.
Suzanne Jabbour, director of the Restart Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture and Violence, says the 20 or so prisoners being treated are the lucky ones.
"The problem is not with the people in the Blue House, who have been diagnosed and are undergoing treatment," Jabbour said. "The problem is the people in jail without any diagnosis and who are suffering from mental illness. You can find enormous numbers of inmates suffering from mental disorders."
The Lebanese prison system provides almost no services for mentally ill prisoners, she said.
"The government doesn't provide any specific support when it comes to psychiatric services in general," she said. "It is NGOs that are providing inmates with psychiatric services, medication, psychotherapy, and follow-up care."
Part of the problem is the legal system itself, critics say.
"The Lebanese law dealing with criminal insanity hasn't been revised since 1943," says Ziad Achour, a lawyer for the Association of Justice and Mercy, an NGO that works in Roumieh prison. "The judge evaluates the prisoner and decides whether they have a mental illness."
