Does Deinstitutionalization Increase Suicide? Written By Jangho Yoon And Tim A. Bruckner

Emile Durkheim was one of the most influential people to write about suicide and its causes. Suicide had previously been thought to be a moral and psychological problem whereas Durkheim related suicide to sociological problems in modern society. He believed and worked to prove that suicide was not related to individualism but linked to the effects of the external influences of modern society. External social influences upon an individual covered the broad and varied aspects such as culture, religion and family. Durkheim believed that suicide was directly related to the level of social integration and/or regulation of a person in society. He developed groups into which an individual was categorised according to their level of integration

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.

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.

The conditions of psychiatric hospitals were poorly maintained yet again. From the late 1800s until the mid-1900s, the conditions of these institutions were hit or miss. Despite the rising population of those in need of mental health treatment, conditions were deteriorating across the board. This pushed in the deinstitutionalization movement (Nevid, Rathus, & Green, 2014). This was a push to remove patients from state-run hospitals into a more community-based treatment center. In most cases today, there are treatment plans in place depending upon the severity of the disorder an individual may be suffering from. It’s more about treating an individual with any variety of modern techniques or therapies and trying to reintegrate them into society rather than a lifelong stay in an institution. Deinstitutionalization didn’t work the way it was intended. After it was put into place there was a rise in the homeless population and different programs that were supposed to be put into place didn’t live up to

Deinstitutionalization is defined as the movement of severely mentally ill people out of large state institutions. In the 1950s, public hospitals housed well over 500,000 people. The reduction in the number of institutionalized people began in 1956. By 1980, the residential population in mental hospitals dropped by nearly three-quarters, an average of 154,000 individuals. This decrease is due to the process of closing public hospitals and transferring patients to community-based mental health services. Consequently, community services were implemented (Talbott 2004).

Bachrach, the author of dozens of articles on mental health, reports on the development deinstitutionalization in “Deinstitutionalisation: promises, problems and prospects” (1995). Bachrach argues that deinstitutionalization is not a perfect solution to the problem of the treatment of PMI and supports her argument with discussions about both the drawbacks and “positive legacy” of deinstitutionalization. She explains that deinstitutionalization has three parts: the release of patients into the community, the diversion of possible new patients and the development of newer community programs; Bachrach logically explains that the last process is “particularly important” because it impacts the entirety of the patients new independent life in the community. Multiple sources remarked that the third step of deinstitutionalization had not been properly handled (SOURCES?), one author going so far as to call the last step, and deinstitutionalization as a whole, an “abject failure” (Kara, 2014). While the author supports this claim with the consequences that things such as the lack of community resources has had on the population of PMI, she does not concede any of the positive outcomes of deinstitutionalization making her argument somewhat one sided. The article explains that while institutions began closing, “hundreds of vulnerable people were displaced” to communities that were not properly equipped to support them. An article from the Canadian Mental Health Association website by Diana Ballon supports this claim with a more concrete figure stating that since 1950s and 60s and the beginnings of deinstitutionalization there has been “the closure of almost 80 percent of beds in psychiatric hospitals” (n.d.). This increase of PMI living in communities with a lack of proper housing lead to a disproportionally large number of PMI being homeless or living in poverty which “greatly increase[s] the odds of PMI

Imagine, the entire province of New Brunswick committing suicide. That is approximately how many people take their own lives over the course of a year. Suicide: a word that has become mum in our society for fear of offence. However, looking at it in a sociological view proves it less personal for many. Suicide is a multi-faceted, prevalent issue engulfing and affecting many today.

Suicide is the act of killing yourself. It is the 11th leading cause of death in America (CDC 2009). I have never had any intentions on committing suicide and I never really understood why people commit suicide that’s why I chose this topic to help me understand what problems people go through that makes them do such a thing. Sociology is the study of social behavior and the culture of humans. There are numerous reasons like financial stress, family problems or mental health disorders that lead to suicide. The number one cause of suicide is untreated depression. The issues that were just listed are some social conditions from society that results in a suicidal

The bottom was characterize as a large black neighborhood in Ohio, that stood above the hill of Medallion was a predominately white wealthy community. Before it was call the Bottom, now they call it the suburbs. Consequently, a good slave master promised freedom and piece of land if the slave perform difficult chores, when they finish the work he was hastens about giving away valley land he hope to give away piece of the bottom. However, the slave thought the valley land was the bottom, the master told them when God look down, it's the bottom, it the bottom of heaven best land there is. And they agree to it, And it was done. Shadrack was a citizen of the bottom, he fought in WWI, return back as a damaged man that couldn't cope with reality of what was happening in the world, his mental state of mind was unstable he live around the border of the town to find harmony in his life.

has had to create new policies and methods in order to combat this social issue. According to a report from the National Sheriff’s Association and Treatment Advocacy Center, ten times as many mentally ill people are in prison and jail in America today than are in mental health treatment facilities (Mills, Steinberg, & Romano, 2015). One example is the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, passed by Congress in 1980. The primary concern of this act was to “authorize redress in cases involving deprivations of rights of institutionalized persons secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States” (Congress, 1980). This act applied to the institutionalized mentally ill, U.S. prisoners , and juveniles. With the passing of this act, Congress took a step in the direction of giving a voice to the most vulnerable in

The release of institutionalized individuals from institutional care (as in a psychiatric hospital) to care in the community. Deinstitutionalization is a long term pattern wherein less individuals live as patients in mental facilities and less psychological well-being treatments are delivered in public facilities. This trend is directly due to the process of closing public hospitals and the ensuing transfers of patients to community-based mental health services in the late twentieth century. It represents the dissipation of patients over a wider variety of health care settings and geographic areas.

The mentally ill have not been allowed basic human rights in most of history. The methods of treatment in the early ages ranged from drilling their skulls to exorcisms. They were usually left to their family’s care and were hidden, abused, restrained, and even abandoned. They were isolated and treated as if they had done something wrong when nothing was their fault. Even today, the mentally ill are ridiculed and not given proper treatment whether it be in asylums, prison, and even general society. There is no excuse for this mistreatment of the mentally ill, but there might be an explanation.

The first thing that will help change the system is total privatization including hospitalization thus creating mental health system that functions like a regular medical health system. Previously constructed Institutions were too bulky and absorbed too much overhead. The mental health system can be localized

The topic that I chose that was the most related to my major and area of interest was an article on insane asylums. From the Psychiatry aspect, some of the things that psychiatrist tend to are patients with mental disorders and patients that live within mental institution. Due to my intended field and area of interest, I plan on going into the psychiatric aspect of psychology. In the article, “Deinstitutionalization: A Psychiatric: “Titanic” that author is able to give off good definitions and statistics on the information first hand. On the other hand in the article, it discusses the true meaning of deinstitutionalization. Basically Deinstitutionalization is taking severely mentally ill patients out of regular state institutions. Most patients are admitted to public psychiatric hospitals have to be really mentally ill. Most public psychiatric hospitals discharge there patients without even ensuring that they have the proper medication and recovery services they need before being let back into the community. However, with deinstitutionalization furthers the process and actually analyses the entire situation. The main focus of deinstitutionalization is having a more opening setting for patients. The author states, “The "least restrictive setting" frequently turns out to be a cardboard box, a jail cell, or a terror-filled existence plagued by both real and imaginary enemies”. With these type of insinuations it causes a variety of construed thoughts. Most people confide in

Émile Durkheim in his book “Suicide” not only described different several distinct sociological profiles of suicide, but also made a variety of inductions based on his findings. He conducted various studies in Western Europe, used available statistics and data from existing research to argue for the hypotheses. A number of the conclusions may fit certain societies in Europe, or even the United States, as the work of Durkheim centred around the suicide rates among Protestants and Catholics in Europe (predominantly, the different cantons in Switzerland). Despite the drawbacks, Durkheim’s classic sociological study is to this day used by various scholars and media, as a basis for discussing the topic of suicide. Some of the major deductions that Émile Durkheim made (besides describing various suicide types) are: