Any Solutions Are Needed

The inhumane conditions seen in state prisons today eerily mimic many of the same issues seen in state psychiatric institutions prior to the 1970s. These institutions sought to solve the problem off overcrowding by deeming many of them stable enough to leave, even though many of them were not. The patients were placed into group homes instead of hospitals. This caused an influx of people with mental health problems into a society where they could not function. Many of them inevitably ended up committing crimes, pushing them into the

In the video, “The New Asylums”, it demonstrated how deinstitutionalization has left thousands of mentally ill patients in the hands of the prison system. As the mental health hospitals closed down, the police department and prison system has become responsible for the mentally ill people that are on the streets. There was a firm point made about the release of mentally ill patients- “When hundreds of thousands of mentally ill are released, they do not magically become healthy. They went to the streets, became homeless, and turned to a system that cannot say no.” The video also stated that today, there are nearly 500,000 mentally ill people being held in jails and prisons throughout the country. Furthermore, there was no safety net for those

The incarceration of those who are mentally ill is on the continual rise. Many states juggle with the decision of placing offenders in Mental Hospital or locating them in State Prisons. Latessa and Holsinger (2011) discuss two major reasons for the increase of those with mental illness within the prison system. First, many states have no longer allow for the insanity plea during criminal trials, thus those who suffer from mental illness are not required to receive mandatory mental treatment. This is due to the discomforting idea that criminal offenders should not be given the same living conditions as those whom are patients of mental wards. Secondly, longer sentences have created a surplus of mentally ill offenders needing treatment. Soderstrom (2007) added that the lack of mental health support systems in

Given the number of incarcerated inmates who suffer from some form of mental illness, there are growing concerns and questions in the medical field about treatment of the mentally ill in the prison system. When a person with a mental illness commits a crime or break the law, they are immediately taken to jail or sent off to prison instead of being evaluated and placed in a hospital or other mental health facility. “I have always wondered if the number of mentally ill inmates increased since deinstitutionalization” Since prison main focus is on the crimes inmates are incarcerated; the actual treatment needed for the mentally ill is secondary. Mentally ill prisoners on the surface may appear to be just difficult inmates depending on the

The shutdown of state mental hospitals and lack of available financial and institutional resources force mentally ill people to the United States Judicial System for mental health. Every year thousands of people are arrested for various crimes and they are sent to jail. Sixteen percent of these people have some type of mental health problem (Public Broadcasting System , 2001). When we consider that the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world at 2.2 million, this number is staggering (Anasseril E. Daniel, 2007). This is about 1% of the entire population of the United States. There are many reasons as to why the situation has taken such a bad turn and when the history of the treatment of mental illness is examined one can see how the situation developed into the inhumane disaster it is today.

The community-based mental health programs are not only inadequate in relation to numbers, but also underfunded (Unite for Sight.org, 2013). According to Martin (1995), we live in a society that is increasingly becoming conscious of an excessive tax burden. Tax burden, on the other hand, provides for the realization of just how deinstitutionalization is directly related to politics and public policy. The pubic in America who account for the electorate, have a significant say in how policy is affected. To this extent the assumption in relation to deinstitutionalization is that due to increased public outcry in regards to taxation, the both federal and state governments have over the years been forced to cut down spending on some items in the recurring budget in order to free up additional funds. According to Treatment Advocacy Center (2011), the federal government in 1965 surgically excluded the payment of Medicaid for patients institutionalized in state psychiatric and other mental disorders institutions. The goals of this action, according to Treatment Advocacy Center (2011) was to foster deinstitutionalization, and the wading of care costs to sates, viewing them as largely responsible for mental care.

Around the 1970’s and 1980’s around the United States many mental hospitals were shut down. There were many reasons why they closed these Asylums was because money, and knowing that there was only about twenty county asylums were built around the country. The asylums also known as the Looney bin was established in Britain after passing in 1808 county asylum act. There were so many patients in these asylums around the world in 1955 about 558,239 severely mentally ill people in the United States were accounted for. Now in these times any mentally ill people don’t get help they just go straight to jail without proper diagnosis or treatment. People need to know these people need extreme care and treatment. Even regular people or considered the norm in today’s society eventually go crazy when they’re in prison too long. We have as much people that are mentally ill as regularly incarcerated. There is one prison in Houston Texas that does take care there mentally ill. We have about 2.2 million

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

Over the past thirty years, there has been a 500% increase in the U.S incarceration rate. (The Sentencing project, 2014) Advances in medicine, such as the discovery of psychoactive drugs, led to the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill patients from psychiatric hospitals. With a long record of horrific abuse,

The United States has never had an official federal-centered approach for mental health care facilities, entrusting its responsibility to the states throughout the history. The earliest initiatives in this field took place in the 18th century, when Virginia built its first asylum and Pennsylvania Hospital reserved its basement to house individuals with mental disorders (Sundararaman, 2009). During the 19th century, other services were built, but their overall lack of quality was alarming. Even then, researchers and professionals in the mental health field attempted to implement the principles of the so-called public health, focusing on prevention and early intervention, but the funds were in the hands of the local governments, which prevented significant advances in this direction.

Illinois has had a vast number of mental health funding cut in recent years. In fact, the state ranks third in the nation when compared to other states that have also cut mental health programs. This has resulting in six mental health care facilities shutting their doors within the city of Chicago alone.

In today’s society there is a greater awareness of mental illnesses. With this greater awareness one might assume that there would be a substantial increase in government involvement or funding in the area of mental illness treatment. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in the U.S. today. There are hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness that go untreated. These potential patients go untreated for many reasons. These reasons are discussed in the Time article “Mental Health Reform: What Would it Really Take.

In 1965, there was a histrionic change in the method that mental health care was delivered in the United States. The focus went from State Mental Hospitals to outpatient settings for the treatment of mental health issues. With the passing of Medicaid, States were encouraged to move patients out of the hospital setting (Pan, 2013). This process failed miserably due to under funding and understaffing for the amout of patients that were released from the State Mental Hospitals. This resulted in patients, as well as their families, who were in dire need of mental health services. This population turned to either incarceration (jails and/or prisons) or emergency departments as a primary source of care for their loved ones.

Jails have been described as “de facto mental hospitals” because they have filled the void created when state psychiatric hospitals began closing in the early 1960s through a process known as deinstitutionalization. Supporters of deinstitutionalization thought the process would help individuals suffering from a mental illness live more self-reliantly while being treated by community mental health programs. However, the federal government did not provide the necessary funding to meet the mounting demand for these programs, leaving numerous untreated. Individuals with serious mental illnesses are often poor or homeless and are likely to have substance abuse problems. Therefore, when they are left untreated, they are more likely to commit minor crimes that have been the focus of law enforcement in recent years (H. Richard Lamb and Linda Weinberger).

In this article on the Washington post website the writer talks about how the shooting at sandy hook elementary school increased the need for mental health needs. She presents the facts about states that cut funding for mental health in 2015. She says “only 23 states increased mental health spending in 2015, compared to 36 states in 2013 and 29 in 2014”. The article brings disturbing facts and questions to life on why we cut funding if there is people needing the help of professionals especially after a national tragedy.