Mental Illness In Jails

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

An unfortunate reality in today’s society is the gross overrepresentation of persons with mental illness in the criminal justice system. According to Teplin (1984), persons with mental illness have been found to be almost twice as likely as individuals without any known mental illness to be arrested for their behavior in similar situations. Furthermore, several other studies have even shown that roughly half of all persons with a mental illness have been arrested at least once in their lifetime (Solomon & Draine, 1995; Walsh & Bricourt, 2003). Although these statistics seem to further support the common belief among many citizens that mentally ill persons are dangerous criminals, research indicates that the mentally ill are more often arrested for nonviolent minor charges (Cuellar, Snowden, & Ewing, 2007). Not surprisingly, a considerable portion of individuals within the criminal justice population have a diagnosable mental illness. According to Ditton (1999), 7% of federal inmates, 16% of state inmates, and 16% of jail inmates have a mental illness. These percentages may be inflated because persons with mental illness tend to spend longer periods of time in custody than those without a mental illness. Perhaps the greatest indication of the brokenness of the system is the fact that there are more mentally ill persons in jails and prisons today than in public psychiatric hospitals (Lamb& Bachrach, 2001). In fact, according to the

Criminals with mental disorders should be held accountable for their actions and receive adequate punishment up to and including the death penalty. If they’re well enough to commit the crime that someone without a mental disorder can commit they should get the same punishment. Inmates with mental disorders are more likely to disrupt day to day prison activity, leading to needing more and more prison guards to keep the order. An estimated 283,000 prisoners are spared from death row because of a mental disorder. With that information it isn’t hard to believe that there is a big problem with overcrowding and over population. Not every single inmate is

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.

If a society is to be judged how it treats its most disadvantaged members, then the United States is in a very lowly state of affairs. The United States currently incarcerates over 356,000 individuals diagnosed with some form of mental illness. This is ten-fold the number of people receiving treatment in psychiatric hospitals, around 35,000 (Frances). Leaving us with the question, when did suffering from a mental illness become a crime worthy of incarceration? Doubt no longer remains as to if the this system is broken, as indicated by recent report from the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs’ Association, which after surveying sheriffs and prison administrators, concluded on three main points. Mental illness among prison populations are growing in numbers as well as severity, prison and jail officers feel compelled to supply a hospital level treatment regimen, and that the problem originates in the mediocre aftercare provided for those who are released accompanied by the continual closure of state psychiatric centers (Felthous). What must be asked now is how does one mend a system on the edge of crisis. There are many propositions on how this may be done, but they can be summed up into the following strategies: the creation of resources to intervene before situations ever become critical, newer and better training of first responders, EMTs, and police officers in mental health emergencies, reformation in the way judges sentence those suffering from

In 2012 doctors performed a study on the prevalence of substance use and serious mental illnesses such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia in incarcerated women. There were a total 491 participants from prisons in Colorado, Idaho, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. These participant’s ages ranged from 17 to 62 and about 75% of these women were mothers of children under the age of 18. One in five women had been incarcerated for two weeks or less and about half of them had been incarcerated for less than five weeks. The occurrence of mental disorders in this study was higher than they thought it would be. They found that there was no major difference in the percentages of women from rural and urban locations.

In the 1830s and beforehand, jails were used for all purposes throughout the time period. The offenders held within them lived among their own filth and were treated inhumanely, because of these undesirable conditions of being put in jail, crime was decreased greatly. Though no one really cared if anyone who didn’t deserve to be in jail ended up in there anyway, like those with mental illnesses or the wrongfully accused. At the time, people viewed those with ‘retardation’ to be a family’s burden and something to be shameful of, most commonly the family would abandon the mentally ill family member at a hospital or in a public place for authorities to turn in.

Next, Cunningham was diagnosed with "paranoid schizophrenia," "antisocial personality disorder", and "borderline intellectual function". Second, Shaifer "long ago diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Third, Pinson with a history of "epilepsy, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia". Fourth, Narducci Jr who was diagnosed with a "mood disorder" and a "mixed personality disorder.

Many people wanted Justice to seek revenge on the crimes that these criminals had done. Depending on the crimes that these criminals had committed, they are usually sentenced to many numbers of years in prison and/or placed on death rows. However, should the mentally disabled be allowed to be executed? Although they appear to be normal, what if they really are mentally impaired and could not help themselves. Every years, many mental disabilities were sentenced to prisons for the crimes that they committed. As the mentally ill were sentenced to however many years in prisons, many have come forward to share their experience of their abusing story while in prisons. Some mental illness were too frightened to speak out that they did not want to

This program is a transitional house for prisoners or clients released from a treatment facility. There has been several studies done on this subject and those studies and have shown that when treatment addresses the social environment the client has a better chance to stay drug and alcohol free. ZywaiK et al. (2002), found that clients with social environments with a higher quantity of people that in recovery, increased client outcomes. This result was persistent at the 3-year mark. Directors or counselors in treatment facilities often ask question about where their clients will live once they complete treatment. This question is asked often by experts who work with clients that are homeless or in high crime filled areas. These treatment

In recent years, there seems to be more people with mental illnesses being housed in jails rather than in a facility where they can get special treatment that they may need. “Jail has been a dumping ground for those that are mentally ill for some time” (Lacey, 2016). It seems that those with mental illness commit minor crimes will end up being put in jail to only be rereleased where they will end up back in jail. It would be a wise decision to give them treatment for their mental illness rather than locking them up in a jail cell and throwing away the key. The police department in in Richmond is trying to find alternative ways to deal with people whom have a mental illness by “offering crisis intervention team training to find alternative ways

While researching I have found numerous article about the negatives of mentally ill in the prison system. I have also found information on the impacts of solitary or the impacts of the negative environment on the metal stability of those in prison. However, finding information on what is being done to improve conditions has been harder to find.

Does society think that mentally ill people are supposed to go to jail for murders that they commit? Does society think that mentally ill people should be ignored in jail, deprived of the treatment that they need? About 9 million people are imprisoned worldwide, but the number with serious mental disorders is unknown. We do know that worldwide, several million prisoners have serious mental disorders, but how does the prison address these issues? Unfortunately, prisons are ill-equipped to respond appropriately to the needs of prisoners with mental illness. Prison mental health services are all too frequently woefully deficient, crippled by understaffing, insufficient facilities and limited programs. The public treats mentally ill people very

I think the main problems with prisoners suffered with mental health illness is a chance for parole. The fact that there is no chance of parole for individuals to get treatment for his/her health condition. Also, prior to their probation, they were sent straight to jail or prison where they were said to serve a sentence, which then leads to no actual treatment opportunities for individuals. I think that if a criminal with mental health problems being served with a determinate sentence than he or she should first spend some time in a mental hospital until their health conditon become more stable than serve the remainder of his sentence in a prison or jail.

Most rehabs do not offer mental health treatment the extent that is needed for most addicts. To assist the person to fight their drug addiction they must receive the correct treatment. Our government over the last 50 years has removed mental health treatment from our society. You know just as well as I do there is nowhere to take anyone to receive the right mental health care that they need, so the officers drop them off in the booking room of the jail if they can get away with it. When Bedford County take the correct steps to treat drug addiction, you will see people realize that they are at rock bottom at a higher rate than what is taking place at the moment. But water boarding mental health offenders is not the ticket for sure. There are