SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration says nearly 13,000 prison staff in Illinois received training for dealing with mentally ill inmates in the past year.

The governor’s office says the Corrections Department partnered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to provide two-day training to help staff better understand conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to improve communication with inmates.

Rauner said Wednesday the effort is part of his administration’s goal of fixing what he calls Illinois’ broken criminal justice system.

It’s one of the few areas the Republican governor has been able to find agreement on with Democrats during an 18-month budget standoff.
The governor’s office says about a quarter of the state’s 43,800 inmates suffer from a mental illness.