A reform is called for in the way mentally ill inmates are handled in the correctional setting. There are suggestions ranging from the increased use of anti-psychotic and antidepressant drugs and various psychotherapies in the correctional setting. In 1998, the Arizona Department of Corrections and the court system spent a substantial amount of time, energy, and money responding to the psychosis of a single inmate, Teshome Abate, an Ethiopian inmate that died after a hunger strike. Abate made efforts to obtain court intervention to assist him in protecting what he believed were his religious rights. He demanded a special religious diet. He asserted that he lived according to the Ethiopian Orthodox religion, which required fasting and dietary laws from the Old Testament of the Holy Bible. Frustrated by his inability to obtain such a diet through the prison inmate grievance system, he turned to the courts, filing at least five separate lawsuits. Abate had been referred to the prison’s mental health unit on several occasions. He was diagnosed as suffering from delusional disorders of the paranoid and grandiose type. The court concluded that it was Abate’s delusions and not the tenets of his religion that were the cause of his having sought the special religious diet that formed the basis of his lawsuit. Abate eventually went on two hunger strikes resulting in his death from starvation. Although Abate harassed correctional officials, other inmates, and the courts, he was not responsible for his actions due to his mental illness. The Abate case can serve as an example of the need for reform so that the many problems associated with his case might be avoided when dealing with mentally ill inmates in the future. The mentally ill criminal offender does not receive adequate treatment while incarcerated. The lack of inadequate mental health resources exacerbates existing serious mental conditions for inmates, resulting in decompensation in inmate mental and physical health, inmate suicides, and related complications in inmate management for correctional officials. 6 notes, 33 references