Gender differentials in the presentation of symptoms, assessment, diagnosis and treatment of mentally ill prisoners

Critical criminologists have written extensively about the gendered nature of the criminal justice system and of its deleterious consequences. This chapter will continue in that same tradition and examine the extent to which gender plays a key role in the presentation of symptoms, assessment, diagnosis and treatment of mentally ill prisoners. The importance of such an exercise is clear. The 'Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners' that was adopted by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1955 made it very clear via Rule 62 that [t]he medical services of the institution shall seek to detect and shall treat any… mental illnesses or defects which may hamper a prisoner's rehabilitation'. Thus, the ensuing analysis here will explore how the gender of a prisoner influences the way in which a mentally ill inmate presents their symptoms (and seeks medical assistance); as well as, how they are thereafter assessed, diagnosed and treated by prison health services. By doing so, it is hoped that penal administrators and correctional health professionals in India will be made more aware of, or sensitive to, these variances, and that the subsequent assessment, diagnosis and treatment of such prisoners will be more gender-responsive so as to maximize the prospect of successful rehabilitation