An Article On Insane Asylums

With states closing many of its mental facilities in the communities, there were a lot of people in need of outpatient care who fell through the cracks of the system and ended up in prison. Prison is where many of them died from inadequate treatment. Prisons were suddenly receiving inmates with the following types of mental illnesses: Schizophrenia, bipolar, and deep depressions. These prisons just did not provide these inmates with any medication during their incarceration. Because the community based health services is lacking, and patients aren’t receiving sufficient outpatient care, it makes the effectiveness of deinstitutionalization a serious problem. Without the availability of 24/7 psychiatric services that are well structured, I believe that deinstitutionalization is what is accounting for the increase of the mentally ill inmates in the correctional facility.

Many years ago, mental illness was viewed as a demonic possession or a religious punishment. In the 18th century, the attitudes towards mental illness were negative and persistent. This negativity leads to the stigmatization and confinement of those who were mentally ill. The mentally ill were sent to mental hospitals that were unhealthy and dangerous. A push in the mid 1950s for deinstitutionalization began because of activists lobbying for change. Dorothea Dix was one of these activists that helped push for change. The change called for more community oriented care rather than asylum based care. The Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 closed state psychiatric hospitals throughout the United States. "Only individuals who posed an imminent danger to themselves or someone else could be committed to state psychiatric hospitals" (A Brief History of Mental Illness and the U.S. Mental Health Care System). Deinstitutionalization meant to improve quality of life and treatment for those who are mentally ill. This would hopefully result in the mentally ill receiving treatment so they could live more independently. The hope was that community mental health programs would provide this treatment but sadly there was not sufficient or ongoing funding to meet the growing demand for these programs. Budgets for mental hospitals were reduced but there was no increase for the community based programs. Many mentally ill individuals have been moved to nursing homes or other residential

The first colonists blamed mental illness on witchcraft and demonic possession. The mentally ill were often imprisoned or sent to poorhouses. If they didn’t go to one of those they were left untreated at their home. Conditions in the prisons were awful. In 1841, a lady named Dorothea Dix volunteered to teach a Sunday-school class for the female inmates. She was outraged with the conditions of the prisons that she witnessed. Dix then went on to be a renowned advocate for the mentally ill. She urged more humane treatment-based care than what was given to the mentally ill in the prisons. In 1847, she urged that the Illinois legislature to provide an appropriate

Today, it seems almost incomprehensible that so many people with serious mental illnesses reside in prisons instead of receiving treatment. Over a century and a half ago, reform advocates like Dorothea Dix campaigned for prison reform, urging lawmakers to house the mentally ill in hospitals rather than in prisons. The efforts undertaken by Dix and other like-minded reformers were successful: from around 1870 to 1970, most of the United States’ mentally ill population was housed in hospitals rather than in prisons. Considering reformers made great strides in improving this situation over a century and a half ago. Granted, mental hospitals in the late 19th and early 20th century were often badly run and critically flawed, but rather than pushing for reform of these hospitals, many politicians lobbied for them to close their doors, switching instead to a community-based system for treating the mentally ill. Although deinstitutionalization was originally understood as a humane way to offer more suitable services to the mentally ill in community-based settings, some politicians seized upon it as a way to save money by shutting down institutions without providing any meaningful treatment alternatives. This callousness has created a one-way road to prison for massive numbers of impaired individuals and the inhumane warehousing of thousands of mentally ill people. Nevertheless, there are things that can be done to lower the rate mentally ill persons are being incarcerated. Such

What this list suggests, is that gender did have an influence on who was committed to insane asylums. Take the label of hysteria for example:

The theory of ‘deinstitutionalization’ began arising with the theory of providing more freedom to the mentally ill and less spending on full time care facilities. The widespread use of drugs to control the mentally ill in the 1900s led to a mass release of patients and an emptying of asylums. Outpatient Psychiatric Clinics were established. Case Law in the United States began to be generated to provide the mentally ill with greater rights. Shelton v. Tucker 1960 provided that the mentally ill should receive care in the “least restrictive alternative”, which is a practice still utilized. O’Connor v. Donaldson 1975 ruled that non-dangerous mental patients have the right to be treated or discharged if they have been institutionalized against their will. This new approached permitted the mass exodus

Today’s correctional facilities are taking on chronically mentally ill individuals causing them to be over-crowed with lack of resources and proper care. Prisons and jails were not built to houses the severely mentally ill, this was never the purpose of prison because they simply do not have the proper training or adequate care for such a high maintenance inmates. State prisons have become the new de facto psychiatric hospital for those who need mental health treatment. This developing problem come from the severely mentally ill being admitted into correctional facilities, which ultimately stemming from the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill from government funded mental health treatment centers. The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill took effect those who needed resources and care went without treatment, which only increases the symptoms related to their disorder causing them to engage in petty crimes sometime followed with more serious offensive landing them in jail or prison. Ultimately, mainstream prisons are not equipped to handle mentally ill inmates. Prisons need to offer some type of effective and extensive mental health services to treat those inmates who

I did not find that much crossing over between, “The New Asylums,” and the article by Dolch. The video talks about how mental hospitals are closing and putting unstable mentally ill patients on the streets. Then they act out in the “real world” and get thrown in jail or prison. The article talks about a case study, different types of mental illnesses, the medications, and how they affect men and women differently. I best crossover between the two is how they talk about hospitalization is only short term treatment. On page 24 of the article it says, “Hospitalization is mostly used in the short term, while medications are tried out and the patient is made safe and stabilized.” This connects to the video because they talk about how if a mentally ill inmate acts out, then he/she is put into the prison infirmary for only a short term just like being at a hospital. Once the inmate becomes stable, they are put back into the prison. Unfortunately, this does not work out well because the prisons are not equipped or

What comes to mind when you hear the words “insane asylum”? Do such terms as lunatic, crazy, scary, or even haunted come to mind? More than likely these are the terminology that most of us would use to describe our perception of insane asylums. However, those in history that had a heart’s desire to treat the mentally ill compassionately and humanely had a different viewpoint. Insane asylums were known for their horrendous treatment of the mentally ill, but the ultimate purpose in the reformation of insane asylums in the nineteenth century was to improve the treatment for the mentally ill by providing a humane and caring environment for them to reside.

The film New Asylums focused on the way which Prisons dealt with inmates who were mentally unstable or ill. It followed the stay of a couple prisoners, described their illness and interviewed them on their personal view on how they felt about their situation. It also provided input from the prison’s health professionals and the prison workers. The beginning of the movie addressed the concern that people who were mentally ill and imprisoned were forgotten. The rest of society seems to think that if these people are locked away the issue is gone.

The article that I chose for my review is Does Deinstitutionalization Increase Suicide? written by Jangho Yoon and Tim A. Bruckner. The reason I chose this article is because I am very interested in mental health and treatment of mental illness. The article focuses on public psychiatric hospitals deinstitutionalizing mental health patients into the community for public mental health care. A reason for deinstitutionalizing patients can be because of the amount of money that the facility could lose. In my opinion, mental health facilities prefer to admit patients with insurance or who are private pay compared to the uninsured or those with low economic status because of the chances of losing the money for services provided. Those who are deinstitutionalized from a mental health facility find themselves going to public community mental health facilities. Although public facilities have resources to help patients, there are some diagnosis that these facilities are unable to treat, in this case the patient needs to be in a more advanced institutional facility. Another thing that the article talks about is the relationship between deinstitutionalization and the rate of suicide.

It’s 2:52 PM and I have exactly eight minutes to get to work and get clocked in. As soon as I pull into work there are two ambulances which means we have at least two patients being admitted during my shift. Those who are unfamiliar with University Behavioral Hospital may often pass it up without realizing that it is even a hospital. It is quite narrow in size however, it is surprisingly long. Trauma, adolescence, military, adult, and psychiatric ICU are the five units the hospital comprises of. It was established in 2005, and we have patients that come in to the hospital with mild to severe mental illness, substance abuse issues, and a lot of the times both.

“On Being Sane in Insane Places” was an experiment conducted by David Rosenhan, a professor of law and psychology at Stanford University. It was first published in the January 1973 issue of Science (Spitzer, 1976). The study consisted of two phases: a participant observation study and a secondary experiment.

The mental health institution in Russia is not the place you want to be at. It is depressing and unhealthy for people with certain issues to be kept in. And sometimes, people who are not sick, are put in mental hospitals to make sure they do not speak their mind or act against the government. For example, Mikhail Kosenko was a protester. He was accused of attacking police and was forced to stay at the mental hospital and receive treatment (Inside a Russian Mental Hospital, 2013).

Where did they go… I hope they know, know where I am and they are cause this time it went too far. They’re probably just messing around just like they always do. They just run and hide when i’m not paying attention and then they pop out and scare me. I kept on walking silently as I was scared out of my mind. Knowing in the next 10 steps I took I would be running for my life because I was so scared. Maybe I would be actually running from something else not my friends? I began to wonder if my friends really ditched me or if they were being held a knife against there throat so they wouldn’t speak. Then the next step I heard screaming of my friend in the room behind me. I jumped a little but I didn’t