Job ad for US bureau of prisons highlights patients’ mental illness as recruiting tool

Some readers offended by its reference to high rates of mental illness among incarcerated people to attract psychologists

Psychologists who work for the bureau that runs federal prisons in the US can treat incarcerated people with every mental illness imaginable, according to an employment ad that stirred controversy on social media.

The ad, bought by the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on Facebook as part of a broader campaign, asks readers to flip to any page in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a standard US text.