If a society is to be judged how it treats its most disadvantaged members, then the United States is in a very lowly state. In the United States we incarcerate over 356,000 individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses a year. This is a ten fold the number of people receiving treatment in psychiatric hospitals, around 35,000 (Frances). Leaving us with the question when did suffering from a mental illness become a crime worthy of incarceration? The question no longer remains as to if the system is broken, as indicated by recent report from the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs’ Association, which surveyed sheriffs and prison administrators, which concluded on three main points. Mental illness among prison populations are growing …show more content…
Deinstitutionalization was a monumental shift meant to close down the widely believed cruel and ineffective state run institutions, and redirect the funds used to maintain them into community based treatment and housing. This has lead to a drop in the number of patients psychiatric hospitals can house from 650,000 to only 65,000, a ten-fold decrease (Frances). Ultimately the countries mentally ill were expelled from one horribly broken system to another, leaving most to inevitably face homelessness or incarceration. This was due to the reallocation funds to the states, which quickly picked away at the funds in the name of budget cuts, and the eventual turning over of treatment to privatized institutions. The problem of course being with privatized institutions is that more often than not decisions are made that facilitate the bottom line, not the well being of the patients they are entrusted with. Privatized psychiatric hospitals have the unique right to decide whom they accept into treatment, often leaving individuals with the most severe and most expensive to treat illnesses, two nearly synonymous concepts, turned away …show more content…
However, the treatment provided in both of these setting is far from equal caliber. Programs offered in prison are usually only that of the figurehead variety, with little to no actual resources being provided. However, the provision of these “mental health resources” to prisoners is often used as a scapegoat for prisons looking to deflect liability when emotional distress leads to a wrongful suicides or violent outbursts (Macmadu and Rich). This not only bars those experiencing newly emerging psychological distress that accompanies incarceration, but those with previously diagnosed conditions, as well. Real efforts need to be into place to create programs with the guide of mental health professionals that are based proven therapeutic strategies. A significant change also needs to occur in the very nature of our prison system. America’s prisons are massively overpopulated, and the problem cannot be solved solely from the outside in. In addition to reducing the number and length of prison sentences given, there must also be work to retroactively to reduce the length of prison sentences of those already serving. Overpopulation contributes to another issue in need of addressing; the