A new edition of an annual report of mental-health treatment in prisons across the nation is useful to Maine primarily to show, first, that this state is hardly alone in its struggle to provide appropriate services to the incarcerated. And, second, it provides a sense of the serious problem created when people who by definition of their crimes often already have mental-health problems are collected together behind bars.

The report from the Department of Justice concludes that Maine provides more counseling, therapy or psychotropic medication than all but three other states. The conclusion seems to disagree with the advocates for the mentally ill, who during the last legislative session energetically pointed out the deficiencies in Maine’s prisons. An author of the study, from the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, however, points out that the report relies on self-reporting by prison officials and does not attempt to assess the quality of services offered. It doesn’t, for instance, try to measure the outcomes of the treatment.

That makes the report of limited use, but value remains in its data because they give the public an idea of just how hard it is to deliver adequate mental health services to prisoners. Nationally, one inmate in eight receives therapy or counseling; one in 10 receives psychotropic medication. In Maine, when the data for the report were compiled in June 2000, the number receiving the drugs was reported as one in five.

The Justice Department estimates that more than 16 percent of inmates have serious mental illness, six times the rate of the general population. Certainly, the very atmosphere of prison is enough to cause anyone to suffer mental-health problems and those with mild difficulties going in to prison feel them more severely. Thirteen percent of inmates, according the report, were receiving mental-health therapy at the time the data were collected. Despite this effort, 22 states (not Maine) were under court-ordered consent decrees because of conditions of their jails and prisons, often related to inadequate mental-health and substance abuse services.

The public may look at the Justice Department figures and conclude, So what? A lack of services is the price of committing crimes. But besides having compassion even for those who are incarcerated and the fact that no judge sentences the guilty to suffer mental illness, the public might keep in mind that almost all inmates get out eventually, so there is self-interest in ensuring that treatment for inmates is available and effective.

It hardly matters whether the Justice study finds that Maine is reporting lots of counseling and therapy or only a little. What matters is how healthy inmates are during their time in prison – and when they are released.