An audit released Wednesday has sparked concern over the treatment of mentally ill prisoners in Wisconsin’s correctional system.

The Legislative Audit Bureau, at the request of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, analyzed staffing and expenditures for mental health services, the process currently used by the Department of Corrections to identify mentally ill and disabled inmates and prepare inmates for their release into the community, among other services.

The audit comes after the United States Justice Department declared the lack of mental health services at the Taycheedah Correctional Institute in Fond du Lac — the largest women’s prison in the state — violated prisoners’ constitutional rights.

Under an agreement with the Justice Department, the state has four years to make improvements or the Justice Department will bring a lawsuit against Wisconsin.

Among its findings, the bureau found while psychologists regularly monitor inmates with mental illness, neither psychology nor psychiatry staffing meets national standards, and correctional officers deliver most medications, which lies in contrast to the health care staff who deliver medications in neighboring states.

The audit also found mentally ill inmates made up 80 percent of the 755 assaults on staff over the past three years, resulting in $874,200 in worker compensations awards.

To help solve the problems, the bureau recommended the DOC provide more specific information and training about inmates’ mental health needs, improve release planning and supervision of inmates after they have been released back into their communities, improve its data collection and management of mentally ill inmates, and ensure all correctional officers are trained in medication delivery.

In a letter from DOC Secretary Rick Raemisch to the LAB, Raemisch acknowledged the DOC faces a variety of challenges regarding mentally ill inmates.

“The challengers we face are significant. Providing effective mental health treatment in a prison environment requires that we prioritize needs, use resources wisely and increasingly value rehabilitation and treatment approaches as we strive to maintain safe and secure facilities,” Raemisch wrote.

Raemisch also ack-nowledged a variety of ongoing efforts the DOC is currently undergoing to improve inmate care. These include developing additional training for correctional officers and the development of protocols to track outcomes among others.

Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Audit, said he thought the audit was beneficial, but he was also surprised by many of the findings.

“All of these issues are related, like the issue of medication. … It seems like there’s some evidence that many of these prisoners aren’t taking their medications,” Barca said. “When they don’t, it causes havoc on the staff … costs taxpayers more, makes them less effective in their group counseling or treatment programs.”