lose many of the community contacts that are essential to their success following release. It is difficult for even the most supportive family members or friends to maintain contact with an incarcerated person. Rikers Island, where the vast majority of city jail inmates are housed, is very inconvenient to visit. A trip to Rikers is likely to take an entire day; when the visitor finally arrives, the inmate may have been taken to court for the day or transferred to another facility. Visiting state prisoners also poses challenges. Most state prisons are located hours from New York City, with some as far away as the Canadian border. To reach these facilities, families take buses from Manhattan on Friday night, spend Saturday at the prison, then Saturday night on the bus returning to the city. Under these difficult circumstances, as years of incarceration go by, a prisoner's connections with family and friends often wither and die. When a released prisoner returns to the community, with neither discharge planning, transitional services, nor the support of family and friends, he is likely to reoffend or violate parole, and be returned to prison. Disconnection from community mental health services Another vital source of support for people with mental illness is community mental health services. New York City is home to a broad spectrum of mental health services, ranging from simple outpatient clinics to 24-hour supportive residences. Many people with mental illness who are arrested have some connection with a community mental health service provider prior to incarceration. These people are likely to be receiving treatment, including psychiatric medication, which is disrupted when they are arrested and incarcerated. Staff at these programs often wish to maintain contact with the client to ensure that the client is getting appropriate mental health services or to offer support to the person following release. But a number of barriers make it di...
