Dignity Is The Foundation Of Our American Criminal Justice System

Individuals suffering from mental illnesses tend to fall victim to the criminal justice system due to their uncontrollable actions that result from their mental illness symptoms. Within the United States two to three hundred thousand people in prison suffer from mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, severe depression, and bipolar disorder. Sadly, the majority of prisons are deficient in providing the appropriate resources to treat these individuals; people with mental illnesses are too frequently socially mistreated, neglected, and misunderstood within the confines of a prison. Prisons are deficient in correctional staff trained to suit mentally ill inmates, in

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 influx of inmates in the late 1970s through 1980s led to unsustainable prions condition that violated inmate’s rights granted by the Eight Amendment. As the budgets were being exhausted, transpired the issues of inmate’s poor medical treatment, abusive physical security, and unsuitable physical conditions (Newman and Scott 2013, 547). In the 1976 case of Estelle v. Gamble, the Supreme Court of the United States “established that an inmate's Eighth Amendment rights were violated if prison personnel demonstrated “deliberate indifference” to a prisoner's “serious illness or injury” (Newsman and Scott 2012, 548). The increased volume of filed lawsuits led to the passing of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which “ targeted frivolous lawsuits by limiting waivers for the requirement that inmates pay filing fees,

Whenever an inmate gets incarcerated or is found guilty for a conviction, many of their rights go away except for a select few. The few rights that prisoners get to keep are, but are not limited to, visitation rights, mail services, religious gatherings and studies, medical treatment and care, and access to courts and legal assistance. These services help inmates stay in touch with society and help inmates get treated fairly throughout the facility (Santillan, 2010). In 1969, there were approximately 300,000 people incarcerated in federal, state, and county jails or prisons. Today that number surpasses 2.4 million and to add to it, there are approximately 4 million under parole or probation (People’s Law Office).

Linder and Frederick J. Meyers. This article starts with a story about an inmate who found out he had cancer while incarcerated. Then, it goes on to incorporate his story throughout the article in interview form to provide inside information on the treatment of prisoners. Most inmates come in with addictions and substance abuse, no access to health care, homelessness, and untreated mental illnesses (Linder and Meyers 895). They blame this on the lack of medical health that’s available to the general population. According to Linder and Meyers, “Inmates and the free-living populations share 6 of the 10 leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease, respiratory disease, influenza/pneumonia, and septicemia”. With the remaining four for inmates being liver disease, AIDS, self-harm and digestion

In the 2011 case of Brown v. Plata Judge Kennedy stated that the prisons in California were beyond overcrowded which lead to lack of proper medical and mental health care, which violated the cruel and unusual clause of the Eight Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (Brown v. Plata, 2011, 1). It stated that California prisons were built to house approximately 80,000 inmates but by the times it went to the Supreme Court it had nearly doubled the original number (Newman and Scott, 2012, 548). It also stated that a prison which deprives prisoners of adequate medical care is an inadequate living facility for any human (Brown v. Plata, 2011, 13). Failure to comply with adequate medical services would cause inmates physical torment which in return would violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause (Newman and Scott, 2012, 549). As a result of overcrowding and lack of proper mental and medical health care the State of California was ordered to reduce their prison population by one-third by May 2013 (Owen and Mobley, 2012, 47).

While much discussion has been had in respect to the legislation of the Affordable Care Act and how it would impact the citizens of the United States, not a lot of thought is given to the medical state of the inmates incarcerated in North America. According to the eighth amendment, cruel and unusual punishment should not be inflicted upon inmates (U.S. Const. amend.VIII). Not issuing the proper medication to a pain stricken cancer patient or prenatal vitamins to an expectant mother can be looked at as cruel and unusual punishment. This paper aims to determine if healthcare in the United States is unconstitutional in its delivery. Healthcare at both federal and state prisons along with detention centers will be examined for this study. I am

At one point the United States Court System paid no attention to inmate complaints and concerns. However, that changed when the Supreme Court took an interest in prisoner litigations. Lawmakers finally began to see inmates as American citizens who still were afforded certain liberties according to the United States Constitution. Once perspectives began to change about the prisoners and their rights, petitions addressing the violations of inmate’s civil liberties started to flood into the courts. The American court system is aware that prisoners do have some rights, but they would naturally be fewer than free citizens (Carlson & Garrett, 2008). The limitation of rights is mandatory to sustain security in prisons or jails. The federal government stepped in and

Should prisoners receive only the very minimum necessary to keep them comfortable? Should expensive diagnostic and treatment options be made available to them? Where exactly should the line be drawn? If a prisoner does receive a lower standard of medical treatment and is later found to be innocent, what sort of responsibility do the state and society bear if he now leaves prison sicker than when he entered? Most people

Psychiatric care 80 years ago was quite different to how standards are set today. The cases of Youngberg v. Romeo and Wyatt v. Stickney both played big roles in developing standards that help maintain humane conditions in institutions nowadays. Both cases played a part in determining the rights of involuntarily committed patients under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Before both cases, patients may have been living in inhumane conditions, refused the right to psychiatric care, and neglected proper habilitation. But now, standards have been set and it’s been deemed appropriate that involuntarily committed patients’ rights must be protected under the Fourteenth Amendment with such standards.

Prison overcrowding has caused many complications to California’s Correctional System. To resolve this issue, “[o]n April 5, 2011, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 109, the ‘2011 Realignment Legislation Addressing Public Safety’…, which… shifted responsibility from the state to the counties for tens of thousands of offenders,” (Abarbanel et al., 2013, 1). This law was put in action was because of overcrowding in state prison and it was affecting a variety of crucial programs that were necessary for inmates to have, such as mental and health services. These problems are not new to the correctional system for there was a cases that influence the movement for realignment, such as Plata & Coleman v. Schwarzenegger, Madrid v. Gomez, Estelle v. Gamble, and Brown v. Plata. Overall, these cases had an issues with overcrowding and the violation of the eighth amendment for cruel and unusual punishment for having inadequate mental and health care assistance.

Let us go back some decades to see what mentally ill offenders had to go through in the prisons of that time. In the American Penal system, it had four states that were involved with brutality on mentally ill offenders in their prisons. This went on for quite sometime, but through all that time many prison officials failed to help or even bother to notices how the mentally ill inmates would suffer.(Andrew

Although inmates may not have full Constitutional rights while incarcerated, they are entitled to basic human rights, freedom and dignity. U.S. penal systems have been reformed at the beginning of the 1960’s. The reason for this reformation is to prevent inhumane treatment, provide inmates with religious freedom, and due process (Smith, 2010). The U.S. Supreme Court

The documentary “The released” shared a very important and serious social issue, which is mental illness of prisoners. The film described the inside of the Ohio prison system as it resisted to provide care for prisoners that have mental health problems. The system there allowed prisoners to leave the jail and either go to a shelter or a residential treatment center, to get the health care they need. After the release, prisoners need to take their medications and keep track with a psychiatrist or a mental health care center. However, most of the prisoners didn’t do what is required, most of them didn’t keep up with their medications and end up by going back to jail. The reason of the release was to give them chance to recover by taking medications

A prisoner’s right to have access to the courts is considered by most to be their most important right, “because it is the right upon which all other rights turn” (Carlson & Garrett, 2008). Without this right, most prisoners would not be able to appeal anything or file lawsuits challenging poor conditions, policies, or violations of their rights (Carlton & Garrett, 2008). “These rights include the Eighth Amendment right to be protected against cruel and unusual punishment, the First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion, and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law and to due process protections in prison disciplinary hearings” (Carlson & Garrett, 2008).