...Mental illness has become an epidemic in the prison system. Most offenders with mental illness go untreated, and those who do receive treatment often get it in the form of forced medication. Some prisons have implemented treatment plans for inmates to try to treat any mental illness or substance abuse problems. Unfortunately, the staffs in the prisons are inadequately trained to detect those who need help and in turn prisoners are not given the proper coping tools or medications. Most of these reform programs are designed for short-term prisoners and focuses on a 9-month plan. The individual is then released with the high rate of returning to prison within the next 3 years. How can we correct how mental illness is treated in the correctional...
Words: 1553 - Pages: 7
...thousands of mentally ill people were left without care (Lyons). This policy has left lasting, harmful consequences in its path. Notably, it provoked a crisis in the nation’s mental health system and provides part of the explanation to why our prison system is overwhelmed with those suffering from severe mental illness. Though mental illness does not discriminate, the mental health care system, the prison system and their complicated interconnections do. Poor folk and minorities with mental illness are less likely to be able to access and receive proper psychiatric care. As a result, these folk are more vulnerable to receiving primary support from jails and...
Words: 430 - Pages: 2
...2016 Sherri Webster Special needs, mentally ill, and substance-abusing prisoners affect the jail and prison systems at a state and federal level in a multitude of ways. One of the main issues within prisons is the fact that their mental health services can be seriously inadequate and lacking the proper staffing, all while operating in facilities that are not equipped to handle such prisoners, on top of a limited amount of programs to even help these prisoners with their problems. If these prisoners are not cared for properly, it could lead to deteriorating conditions for the prisoners. State and Federal Levels are Affected Jails and prisons are not meant to be home to the mentally ill, yet, when someone who is mentally ill commits a crime and cannot receive help outside of jail or prison, that is where they end up. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression are just a few mental disorders that can plague prisoners in the criminal justice system. One of the main issues with prisoners having these mental health issues is the fact that prisons are not sufficiently capable of dealing with the increasing amount of prisoners coming into the system with mental health disorders (Human Rights Watch, 2016). Human Rights Watch (2016) goes on to state that “Unfortunately, prisons are ill-equipped to respond appropriately to the needs of prisoners with mental illness…Many seriously ill prisoners receive little or no meaningful treatment” and also that “Twenty-two out of forty...
Words: 1110 - Pages: 5
...Mentally Ill in Prison PSCH/610 Mentally Ill in Prison Abstract The increase in incarcerated individuals with mental illness in the preceding decades has made the prison system a prevalent mental health provider even though they are not prepared or equipped for such task. Prison life is tough on an individual’s mental health; overcapacity, lack of privacy, violent behavior, lack of activity, inadequate health services, seclusion from family and friends, and the insecurity of what life holds after prison contribute to the inmate’s mental health. Inmates whose judgment is altered or impaired by depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other severe mental illnesses are impacted more severely by the tribulations of prison life. Inadequate mental health services is also something mentally ill inmates face, this absconds them undertreated or mistreated. Numerous prisoners do not receive proper psychotropic medication due to the lack of mental health services and care, further impairing their capability to function. The security mission of prisons tends to overlook mental health considerations. Prison rules and codes of demeanor teach staff about security, safety, supremacy, and power. Coordinating the needs of the mentally ill with prison regulations and goals is almost impractical. Factors of the sources and effects of the concern between prison and mental illness will be observed in this research proposal. Reforms will be provided to improve mental health requirements...
Words: 4562 - Pages: 19
...Mentally Ill Offenders Introduction Mental illness in prisons has been sort of a pandemic for correctional systems in the United States for over the last 10 years. The number of men and women who come to prison with some form of mental illness continues to grow by the day. Offenders who do not come to prison mentally ill, will most likely release from prison with some type of mental illness at the end of their prison sentence. This paper will discuss how this population of offenders adapts when they come to prison, and how there viewed by the community. This will be examined here along with some insights on what should be done along with why this topic was chosen. Schizophrenia Many mentally ill offenders come to prison with a variety of disorders schizophrenia, manic depression (bi-polar) or major depression (Schizophrenia.com - Crime, Poverty Violence., n.d.). Schizophrenic inmates probably account for the largest segment of offenders who enter the correctional system every day and have a difficult time adapting to the confines of a correctional environment. By definition schizophrenia is an inability to think, process emotions where people tend to behave in an unacceptable manner because their mind is not able to react to the stimuli from every day life; the name schizophrenia comes from the Greek root "split mind" (Skitzophrenia., n.d.). Hallucinations, hearing voices, paranoia are just some of the...
Words: 2082 - Pages: 9
...being a chief of mental health services for a state department of corrections I have been assign to be responsible for a particular job .Unfortunately, the director is under pressure from the governor and mental health advocates, and say that the department has ignored the needs of mentally ill inmates. When knowing that their points have some validity because the department does not have many specialized mental health programs. This issue has been heightened by two mentally ill inmates who committed suicide by hanging themselves in the prisons over the past sixty days. In addition, a mentally ill inmate was raped in another prison. Also, an inmate suffering from mental illness murdered a staff member last week. My responsibly is to design...
Words: 725 - Pages: 3
...their mental illness influencing their criminal behavior. Often when the mentally ill are tried, their illness is not discussed in court. Since the court system does not take mental illness into account, they get incarcerated instead of being institutionalized. Mentally ill prisoners are more likely to be treated more harshly by correctional staff in jail due to their conditions. The harsh treatment of mentally ill prisoners can be combated by improving correctional officer behavior, counseling prisoners to deal with trauma, and correcting prisoners' morals in life. Most mentally ill criminals go to prison instead of a mental hospital due to their illness not being identified or even...
Words: 905 - Pages: 4
...Just Mercy Essay Mental illness has been a big issue in the United States, over the past century or maybe a little less than a century. Some believe that we use mental illness as excuse to put people in prison to keep us, while some people believe the opposite of that. Bryan Stevenson tackles this issue in his book of Just Mercy. He also tackles what the contributing ideas or factors to the large numbers of mentally ill people in prison. Stevenson’s points support what he says, a story that supports his points is a case that happened recently in Michigan. Stevenson talks about mental illness and how big of issue it is when it comes to prisons. Stevenson addresses this issue by stating that, “fifty percent of prison and jail inmates in...
Words: 898 - Pages: 4
...are held in prison or jails are getting more suicidal thoughts than ever. Just by being there by themselves they drive themselves crazy. Being trapped in those cells make them hallucinate things. A lot of these inmates are being held in solitary confinements, being mistreated, and the population in the jails and prisons are made up of mentally ill offenders. Many of the mentally ill offenders in prisons and jails are being mistreated. A lot of them have experienced shocking, physical and sexual abuse from other prisoners. Many of them across the United States are subjected to routine physical abuse from guards. A lot of these offenders leave sicker than when they entered. From all of these daily abuses a lot of them have died in prison for this cause. What some of these jails do wrong is that they are not required to report the use of force by guards. Inmates are being put in the state psychiatric hospitals due to the mental illness they have. One of the cases that happened in Michigan (2005) was this man...
Words: 654 - Pages: 3
...individual requirements of a person with a disadvantaged background or a mental, emotional, or physical disability or a high risk of developing one. Most serious crimes are created by mentally ill people, we just call them criminals. We do not recognize the attention or special needs they are needing until they are incarcerated after committing the crime. I am not saying all criminals are mentally ill. There are some criminals that require special needs because of their health issues. It is a law that prison should abide by attending to special needs inmates, it will be heartless to mistreat or not tend to an inmate because of something he/she cannot control....
Words: 1348 - Pages: 6
...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...
Words: 1531 - Pages: 7
...very important when running a prison or jail. Usually, mentally ill inmates have had few or no protections against discipline routinely applied to their non-mentally ill peers. Arising from recent class action lawsuits challenging the quality of mental health care delivery in the nation’s prisons, prison mental health professionals have been called on to play an increasing role in the inmate disciplinary process. Referral questions include whether an inmate is competent to proceed with disciplinary proceedings and whether mental illness may have contributed to the rule violation. Prison mental health professionals participating in inmate disciplinary proceedings must therefore be familiar with relevant clinical, legal, and ethics issues. Little has been written in the psychiatric literature, however, examining this important role for prison mental health professionals. After first reviewing core legal and constitutional concepts, the author presents the results of a nationwide survey examining the role for mental health professionals in the inmate disciplinary process. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to provide a comprehensive review of this subject. Most prison systems have procedures for punishing prisoners who violate prison rules and for removing inmates from the general population for disciplinary or safety reasons. (For the purpose of this article, the terms “prisoner” and “inmate” will be used interchangeably. “Mental health” and “custody” are sometimes...
Words: 4795 - Pages: 20
...In the introduction handout, Thomas Szasz is quoted from his book The Myth of Mental Illness as arguing that “mental illness is not an illness at all but merely a failure to cope with normal life”. Even though people who commit a crime should be punished, those who have a mental illness should be treated with a slight difference compared to those who are of competent mind when they commit their crime. It is said that the population of those with a mental illness is higher in prisons than in the general population which is most likely due to the fact that people with mental illnesses are more likely to participate in an act of violent assault or sexual assault than people who do not have a mental illness. (Paraphrased page 9) The insanity defense became popular especially after high profile cases such as Daniel M’Naughten, John Hinckley Jr., and many more. With this defense becoming more common, those opposed to the defense began to make it stricter to use it because some felt it was a “copout” and that it is often abused. One way in which they sought to make the insanity defense stricter is by requiring that for the defense to be used, the perpetrator must not be of sound mind meaning they must not understand the act that they had committed and/or they must not be able to understand that the act was wrong (morally and legally). On the other hand, those who support the insanity defense believe that there are actually not that many cases in which a defendant claims the insanity...
Words: 826 - Pages: 4
...The purpose of this assignment is to create an APA formatted reference list for eight articles from reputable sources, and a one paragraph summary for each article selected, and a brief expression of intent on the selected articles. As clearly noted in Creswell (2009) literature review provides the ground work for a preparation of another scientific work. Creswell further notes… “ this literature review passage should summarize large groups of studies instead of individual ones”( Creswell, 2009, p.104). Rhodes, A.L. Total Confinement: Madness and Reason in the Maximum Security Prison (2004) is a book written by Dr. Lorna Rhodes. Her study explores, examines, and recognizes what life is like inside confined walls of solitary units inside prisons. Her study provides not only the image of solitary confinement- but the sense of loss and liberty of humanity when an offender is faced with long periods of extensive isolation from all; but those who feed you (correctional officers). Dr. Rhodes- explores and discusses the challenges that are faced both by the front-line-staff and offenders. Such as, psychological, emotional, and physiological changes- and provides her academic perspective with a scientific response. Rationale for Selection There are a lot of research currently available in-regards to isolation of offenders, and the biological effects on human body, mind, and perceptions. This study is valuable to my research even though the findings are not as scientific as...
Words: 1850 - Pages: 8
...Treatment of Mental Health: Institutionalism versus Community Care Sandra L Pauwels Saint Leo University Treatment of Mental Health: Institutionalism versus Community Care For many centuries people with mental illness have been shunned and avoided as if they had the plague. Many view the mentally ill as frightening and horrifying individuals. Our treatment of them has often reflected current or prevailing public sentiment of them. In 400 B.C., Hippocrates viewed people with mental illness as having a physiology of “dis-ease”, or, rather, an illness (Randy MacLowry, 1999-2002). Hippocrates’ position was definitely not the popular opinion. The opinion held by the general population was that mental illness was a punishment for displeasing the Gods. From the beginning in the Middle Ages, locking our mentally ill individuals away from society was common. Because we feared the mentally ill, they were considered to be outcasts of society. Some were even executed as witches in the early days of our country. (Micah Steele, 2009). It was believed that the mentally ill were possessed by demons or witches. The mentally ill were shunned, banished, or locked away because they were feared. Because people believed that mental illness could be “caught” from those who were afflicted. In the 1980’s focus shifted from long term facilities that locked up the mentally ill to community mental health centers. It was hoped that treating individuals within the community would help people understand...
Words: 1383 - Pages: 6
