Mental Asylums : The Benefits Of Mental Asylums

The mentally ill should be treated with care in their community instead of staying in prisons or asylums that don't treat them properly. There have been numerous accounts of the mentally ill being tortured and even killed by prison guards because they aren't trained to deal with these patients and their needs. An article, “The Torturing of Mentally ill Prisoners”, by Eyal Press recounts several occasions where mentally ill prisoners were either treated very poorly by the guards or even killed by them in prison. Several people who worked in those prisons speak out against the injustice towards the mentally ill in prisons that nobody hears off. Press states, “In 2013, four senior inspectors employed by the D.O.C. alleged that Randall Jordan-Aparo, an inmate at a prison south of Tallahassee, had needlessly suffocated to death. Corrections officers had sprayed Jordan-Aparo with chemicals, even though he suffered from a disorder that compromised his lungs. The inspectors also alleged that Jordan-Aparo had committed no disciplinary infractions; he had angered corrections officers by demanding medical attention” (Press, 2016, para.78). This information emphasizes the inhumane treatment of the mentally ill in prison who just need medical care. In some occasions, these people are killed by their prison guards. The mentally ill cannot stay in prisons,

In the 1800s, asylums were built as a means to house the seriously mentally ill, often taking persons from their homes and families to die alone in often deplorable and inhumane conditions. The process of “locking up” persons who were deemed seriously mentally ill continued until the 1950s after the public demand for humane treatment towards the seriously mentally ill

The mental insane in the 1800s were treated as sins from God. If a family had a family member with a mental disability during that period the family was expected to hide and be ashamed of that member. Usually only the well being were able to hide the ill member, the lower classes because of the cost of a useless extra family member, were forced to turn their insane member to the streets. Asylums for the mental ill were first developed by Dorothea Dix after her horrified visit to Bedlam hospital. Dix single handily helped transform asylums of the late 18th century into organized medical models that are seen today. Thus, by Dix’s need to help others and her determination to change the lives of the mental ill the first insane asylum was

In fact, it was reported that "a chronic medical condition, an illness rate far higher than other Americans of similar age. More than 20 percent of these sick inmates in state prisons, 68.4 percent of jail inmates, and 13.9 percent in federal prisons had not seen a doctor or nurse since incarceration." Many of these inmates had a past where they suffered from mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression in some cases even anxiety. However, prisons and jails lack the resources to help these offenders cope. "many prison mental health services are woefully deficient, crippled by understaffing, insufficient facilities, and limited programs. All too often seriously ill prisoners receive little or no meaningful treatment. They are neglected, accused of malingering, treated as disciplinary problems. This is a major issue impacting the care of prisoners because not enough awareness is being drawn to these problems these serious sicknesses that prisoners have does not receive enough attention or in most cases no meaningful treatment. These things

We can no longer ignore this on-going age old problem of dealing with the mentally ill by hiding those plagued, away in a prison cell to be forgotten. Despite the success of Dorothea Dix in solving the problems with adverse conditions in the prison system, we have come full circle and are currently back where we started over a century ago. There has been so much focus put on housing the mentally ill, we have all but forgotten about any type of treatment plans to help the overall growing problem. The handling of the mentally ill in the prison system was on a collision course with the Court. Most of the prison systems have one time or another violated prisoners’ rights under the 8th amendment, cruel and unusual punishment.

A report written by several contributors from the Treatment of Advocacy center writes in detail the problems that are connected with imprisoning mentally ill persons. The problems include but are not limited to behavioral issues that are troubling to other inmates and correctional staff, jail/prison suicides in inconsistent numbers, augmented taxpayer costs, worsening condition of the inmates with mental illness as they go without treatment. The report states that prisons have become America’s new asylum because of the United States no longer have mental facilities available. Taking into consideration the number of

According to Morrissey, et al (2016), individuals with mental illness are three times more likely to be incarcerated, with over 100,000 in jails, over 250,000 in prisons, and over a million on probation or parole in mid-2016. One study estimated that 15-25% of adult prisoners suffer from mental illness, compared to 5-8% of the general public (Falconer, El-Hay, Alevras, Doch erty, Yanover, Kalton, Goldschmidt, & Rosen-Zvi, 2017). Compounding the problem, it has been estimated that nearly 30% of jails are holding mentally ill individuals who have not been charged with a crime but are simply waiting for a psychiatric evaluation or a bed to open in a hospital (Ellis & Alexander, 2017). Prisons and jails are now referred to as the “new asylums” and “warehouses” (Felthous, August 2014). While some prisons have special mental health units, such units often do not have enough beds to provide for the number of severely mentally ill prisoners who need them (Lord,

& Friedrich, R., 2017). While this process was intended to integrate this population with the greater population, there was not enough community based programs being created for the amount of people being released from psychiatric hospitals. Today, long stay psychiatric hospitals are only available to those who have shown that their mental illness is a danger to others if allowed to live within the community without supervision. There are a few policies that can be credited for the closing of long term mental health facilities and the increasing number of individuals that are now homeless as a

What a fascinating article and it speaks volume on how recent history of our prisons have become ways in which we deal with mental health and that is to lock them up. According to Hoke (2015) the mental illness is disproportionately represented in the prison system, people get re-incarcerated because of social factors such as mental illness. In this article it seem that in prison they only send you to psychiatric ward to stabilize you almost like our ER or psychiatric inpatient beds are utilized. Therefore a strategic plan needs to be put in our prison system which is a complicated with complex issues, and deep seated problems which are often contained in large institutions (Stringer, 2014). If prisons created a comprehensive mental health

Insane asylums are hospitals that specialize in the treatment of serious mental disorders, such as clinical depression and schizophrenia. The treatment of mental illnesses dates to 5000 B.C.E, where illnesses were treated by trephining to release evil spirits. The treatment for the mentally ill was different depending on the culture and period. The first public mental asylum was established in the early 19th century in Britain after the passing of the 1808 County Asylums Act. The County Asylums Act was passed in the UK Parliament to establish places to care for people with mental health problems. Due to this act, each county in the UK was required to create asylums to house people judged to be mentally insane. Unfortunately, due to the social

The world is full of strange and unknown wonders. Mankind has always been one to try and take an approach to find answers to such mysteries, except during a time when it became a special part of our own society. These individuals were neglected, mistreated, and forgotten because they were these such things. As a way to try and "solve" these problems the people of victorian England made asylums. Although these weren't the best at first they had many advocates that came along in whom helped and made new laws for their living conditions, and treatment to greatly increase satisfaction of these patients.

“Spend more money on training and separation of the mentally ill. We often incarcerate people who are mentally ill because there is no other place to put them. And consequently, prison is probably the worst place to be if you're mentally ill”.

I've always had an interest in the way people think, as well as helping people with emotional issues. So there's no question when i say i plan to study the field of psychology. I find mental institutions and asylums very appealing, in the sense of how they function and view patients and the way they treat and deal with the mentally ill. A root of my interests may stem from within my family, my mother, for example, has always had problems with anxiety and depression, and she often talks about her mental health and what she has to go through relating to her illness. Not to make my guardian sound mentally unstable, she happens to function just as well as any other person.

The public asylums used Tuke's and Pinel's methods combine to manage the patients. They had created medical versions of moral treatment. The asylums had been carefully designed so that the environment had a strong father figure which calmed the patients and restored their sanity, but the physicians exaggerated claims of curing the 'lunacy' backfired. The buildings became over crowded and by 1890 the majority of patients left only in coffins. Old techniques soon returned, this being of straitjackets, seclusions and sedative drugs.

Jails, at the time, are the only place that the mental can go right now because they can not say no to anyone; therefor, the mentally ill are being dropped on the front step without any kinds of treatments and now have to deal with a criminal record. Some states allow police officers to come into a person home and escort them to a jail if they have been reported as mentally ill. These patients are treated badly because they are running out of places to be put.