Special-Needs Offender Programs - Research Paper Example

According to estimates, mental illness affects 50 percent of the population in U.S. prisons (DeGroot, 2015). The high population leads to overcrowding in prison because of the high population. As a result, mentally ill inmates may be put under solitary confinement and may not receive adequate mental health medical attention. Mentally retarded offenders require treatment in facilities that can adequately address the issues affecting them. The treatment helps in their rehabilitation (Lamberti, Weisman, & Faden, 2014).

Crime close relates to substance or drug abuse. Most offenders in prisons committed crimes while under the influence of intoxicants. Such offenders should be given specialized attention during their detention and incarceration. Formulation of rehabilitation is necessary to provide the necessary help to drug users (Atabay, 2009). The main challenge that substance abusers face is the fact that prisons in the U.S. serve many prisoners. The provision of services to many offenders makes it difficult to single out substance abusers in order to rehabilitate them.

A sexual offence by definition is an unwanted sexual encounter between two or more adults or minors. The sexual offence may involve actual contact or no contact. Sexual offenders are individuals who engage in such activities. Unfortunately, sex-related crimes are quite common in the U.S (Sample & Kandleck, 2008).Estimates have it that one out of five girls faces sexual abuse before attaining adult age. In the case of boys, it is one out of seven (CSOM, 2015). Women offenders are also under the special-needs offender categories.

The reason for this is the fact that women have psychiatric attributes that make them different from male offenders. For this reason, women detention is done in specific correctional institutions. As at 2010, there were 113,000 women facing incarceration in the correctional