Medication Continuity in New York Jails: What the Record Has to Show Before a Psychiatric Opinion Holds Up

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Correctional Mental Health

When a maintenance psychiatric medication stops at intake or lapses mid-stay, the dispute is rarely about whether the drug was clinically indicated. It is about what the custody record shows, hour by hour and dose by dose, and whether the gap explains the outcome that followed. What a continuity claim is actually litigating A medication-continuity allegation in a correctional setting almost never reduces to "the patient had a mental illness and did not get medicated." It is a claim about a specific interruption: a maintenance antipsychotic or mood stabilizer that was running before custody and then stopped, was substituted, or was never reordered after a transfer. The forensic task is to loc

Most relevant service: Criminal Forensic Evaluations