Prison terms: CMI

In the TDCJ system, CMI stands for “Chronic Mentally Ill” and is often used to refer to the CMI-TP, or the CMI Treatment Program. The program was started in early 2019 (the official policy can be found here), and is claimed to offer additional assistance for persons dealing with certain mental health conditions. However, actual practice indicates it is a means of continuing to assign persons with mental health issues to what is essentially solitary confinement, which TDCJ claims to have eliminated, but which in practice continues under different names. A 2019 Texas Tribune article provides some more discussion of the program.

We don’t see this acronym often, but it is good to know about because when we do see it, it is usually just the “CMI” with no explanation of that that means.