Mental Health Care for Male Prisoners in the United States

This paper explores the topic of mental health within prisons and how it affects the inmates. The report of my findings were through research of twelve articles, two credible website sources, and a published textbook.

Everyday correctional officials work to deal with mental health inmates. Often hotly debated, many search for ways to work with this growing population. Glaze and Bonczar (2009) estimate around 2.3 million people are incarcerated within the US and of those, 20 percent suffer from some form of mental disorder. Even with such a high number, the rate of mental illnesses within the prison system is on the climb. Many of these inmates will remain incarcerated and receive little to no treatment for their mental issues. This essay, will look at the practices associated when dealing with mental illness and discuss the strategies on dealing with this growing issue.

Overall, this group project went very well and was completed on time due to the fact there everyone including myself assigned ourselves with a task role, relational role and from the start had individual roles present such as leader, compromiser, and gatekeepers in the group that made it

Texas has approximately 24.3 million residents according to 2010 state statistics from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Close to 833,000 adults live with a serious mental illness. Within these 24.3 million residents of Texas in 2008, approximately 37,700 adults with a mental illness were incarcerated (NAMI.org). Additionally, there is an estimated 31% of female and 14% of male jail inmates nationally live with serious mental illness. We see this because there are inadequate public mental health services to meet the needs of those suffering. Texas public mental health

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

The current prison and criminal justice system has not proven to be helpful in rehabilitating offenders and preventing recidivism. To successfully alter this situation it is important to understand what steps and measures are available to assist those who find themselves imprisoned. The techniques used in cognitive behavioral therapy have proven to be effective in treating depression, anxiety and drug addictions among other things. Analyzing the techniques developed in cognitive behavioral theory and applying them to psychotherapy in prison environments can assist in making improvements in the prevention of criminal activity, rates of incarceration and safety and security of the general population. The literature shows that the use of

In the Frontline presentation, “The New Asylums”, the program explored the lives in prison of several Ohio inmates. The presentation presented numerous distinct issues of the treatment of the mentally ill in the prison system. The most significant issues presented within the program were the medical treatment received both in and out of the prison system, factors that influence punishment, isolation and medication, the length of the sentencing the mentally ill receive, and why prisons seem to have become the new asylums.

Mental illness is a very serious situation considering that many jails have more ill people that any hospital. Prisons are not set up for ill people. But they pick the mental ill people form the streets do to the fact they can not support them self. The main goal for this institution is to help out the mentally ill. Some inmate’s target the weak, and the inmates that need help would become easy prey. If an inmate even looks at an ill person it is a clear target that can easily be harmfully harassed. I am against mental ill inmates being in prison and jail considering that they can not defend them self.

For this class project, I think my group worked well together on the assignments. We all saw we had responsibilities and were expected to do our own parts for each assignment we worked on. For each assignment, we would split it equally among us and used a tool called Google Docs so we were each on our own computers but working together on one file. Google Docs really made the process easier with reviewing all the information and having it all in one file. If any questions came up we had a group text to communicate when we weren’t on campus grounds for class.

As stated by Mental Health America (MHA), “On any given day, between 300,000 and 400,000 people with mental illnesses are incarcerated in jails and prisons across the United States, and more than 500,000 people with mental illnesses are under correctional control in the community”. Mental Health Treatment in Correctional Facilities policy was put in to place on March 7, 2015 due to the ignored rights to mental health medical services that incarcerated individuals face. The policy sets a standard to how incarcerated individuals are to be treated, and protects the rights of the vulnerable individuals.

Imagine millions of Americans being arrested for having a sickness or disease. What would the charges be? Hypertension? Diabetes? Cardiovascular disease? Asthma? This is essentially what has happened in the United States’ correctional system when it comes to the mentally ill. Instead of being treated for their illness, many persons with mental problems are receiving sentences – and harsher sentences at that (James & Glaze, 2006, p. 8-9). They are, in a sense, being charged with having a mentally illness.

A few solutions for the rising mentally ill inmates in prison is to : keep a working public mental health treatment system so that those that are mentally ill do not end up in prison or jail. Redo the mental illness treatment laws and practices in communities that will help eliminate obstacles to treatment for those people that are too ill to recognize they in face need help. This will help these individuals before they are so out of the normal that they commit acts that result in their arrest. Reform jail and prison treatment laws so inmates with mental illness can receive appropriate and necessary treatment just as inmates with medical conditions receive appropriate and necessary medical treatment. Implement and promote jail diversion programs

Prisons and jails have become America’s largest provider for mental health services. The Harris County Jail treats more individuals with mental health issues on a daily basis than our state 's 10 psychiatric hospitals combined (Texas Observer). Law enforcement authorities are not meant to care for those who are mentally ill and often lack the resources and expertise to do so. We desperately need to reduce the number of people with mental illness in jails by providing this often overlooked population the mental health services they deserve.

If anyone were to take a look at The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, 4th edition, (DSM IV), they would discover that nearly every human being could relate to “symptoms” required for some form of mental disorder. The need for effective mental health services in this country is essential, not only for general society, but also within the criminal justice system. These days it seems that more and more people are being diagnosed with some form of mental disorder or disability. It’s important that those who provide mental health services be properly trained and certified so as to

Prison health is an inevitable section of public health (WHO, 2011). Healthcare in prison has grown into a global and ignored problem (Finkel and Skorton, 2011). Prison healthcare has planned to offer a service approximately correspondent to that of community healthcare in both quality and access however according to research most prisons fail to accomplish this (Reed, 2003).