Mental Illness Role : Ashley Smith

Mental Illness has been prevalent all throughout our history from Isaac Newton to Abraham Lincoln to Sylvia Plath and so on. These illnesses can be as minor as a slight bipolar disorder or as severe as schizophrenia. In recent years, mental illnesses are becoming more prevalent in our criminal justice systems than anywhere else. Mental illness is becoming an association with crime and based on the information that has been found, this paper will attempt to further define the problem of mental illness within our criminal justice system and offer alternatives or insights as to how to possibly help with this problem.

Felson, R. B., Silver, E., & Remster, B. (2012). Mental disorder and offending in prison. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 39(2), 125-143.

McLellan, F. (12/02/2006). Mental Health and justice: the case of Andrea Yates. Lancet, 368(9551), 1951-1954. doi:10.1016/S014-6736(06)69789-4

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

This legal issue addresses how police services are being given very little training into circumstances involving mentally ill perpetrators and examines how and why they are given no formal screening process in identifying those who have a mental disorder.

Simon’s arguments gave me an insight towards my implications of inadequate mental health treatment and how the mentally ill were not really getting treated due to overcrowding. An issue in which questions how mentally ill patients will improve at their time in the prison facility, which kept me wondering how this situation even got to this very point. The lacking quality requirements resulted to turning an action into a criminal offense by making it illegal to the mentally

This section of the book bounces back and forth between the stories of Charlie, a boy who was facing life in prison for the murder of his mother’s abuser, as well as the theme of children facing such sentences and the mentally disabled. The chapter also introduces the beginning of the downward spiral for the McMillan case, an unfortunate hearing and a denied appeal request.

Interdisciplinary team work is extremely important to ensure patients receive quality care that meets their individual needs (Nancarrow, et al, 2013). To achieve this a group of health care professionals work together by bringing their different professions, assessments and evaluations together in order to design a care plan for treatment of the patient (Korner, 2010). For example if a patient is dealing with a mental health disorder such as depression or schizophrenia, the interdisciplinary team would consist of the doctor, nurse, psychologist, psychiatrist, pharmacist and neurologist. The roles and responsibilities of each team member must be based on their scope of practice including the assessment of the patient, the treatment to be given,

Paula Gray is a victim of wrongful imprisonment as a result of flaws found in her conviction, thirty three years later. The first flaw in her conviction was, after being questioned for over two days in a motel, 17 year old Paula Gray, who has a history of being borderline mentally ill, confessed to witnessing a

In addition to the previously noted negative psychological effects of prisonization, it is common for individuals who were wrongly imprisoned to be angry and bitter about the injustice they suffered (Cook et al., 2014). The fact of their innocence heightens the psychological toll, which exacerbates the overall effects of imprisonment (Campbell & Denov, 2004). In a seminal study on the psychological consequences of wrongful conviction, Grounds (2004) completed systematic psychiatric assessments of 18 exonerated men who had no psychiatric histories prior to their wrongful arrests. His findings were telling: 14 met the criteria for “enduring personality change after catastrophic experience” (p. 168), 12 met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, 10 were diagnosed with depressive disorder, 5 exhibited panic disorder features, 4 exhibited paranoid symptoms, and three were alcohol or drug dependent. As case managers, social workers should be aware of likely psychological effects common among exonerees and should have a pool of therapeutic resources to draw from as referrals for them. As mental health care providers working with exonerees, social workers should learn as much as possible about problems common among this population, and recognize that they have unique needs beyond the needs shared by all former

While it would beneficial to society to put away these kinds of people, it would be more beneficial to put them in isolation (solitary confinement), away from other people so that they cannot bring harm to themselves or anyone else. This would keep them away from the public and shows that while they cannot control their own actions, they should be held accountable in some way or another. The mentally challenged should not be accountable for their actions on the same terms as normal people.”Today, it is estimated that 90% of UK prisoners have a diagnosable mental illness or substance abuse problem (Office for national statistics)”. Most of these prisoners were charged with not having a mental disability. If they were to have a known disability they would have gotten help and a lesser of a

There are many people with mental disorders in U.S.A and many of those people end up in jail. Some people may think this is good, worse people in jail right, wrong. So many mentally ill people are prosecuted and sometimes are not even given the option to go to somewhere that is more qualified to hold them. The words mentally ill to describe a person often gets lost in context when people talk about this subject. The definition of a mentally ill person is “a person who thinks, acts, and behaves differently”. There are reasons why this is bad and they are it is bad to keep the mentally ill in prison, how much this issue effects, and how harsh it is for the mentally ill in prisons. This issue needs to be stopped.

As defined by the American Psychiatric Association (2013), individuals diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) exhibit “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood. Individuals, both with and without ASPD, often find themselves facing stiff consequences when they break the law by violating the rights of others. The propensity of individuals with ASPD to break such laws is one possible explanation for the prevalence of ASPD increasing from a range of 0.2% to 3.3% in the general population to 47% in prisons (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Fazel & Danesh, 2002). With such a disparity between the general and prison prevalence of ASPD, it is clear that society is adroit in isolating the undesired behaviors of individuals with ASPD; however, society also has a responsibility to protect the rights of those diagnosed with a bonafide illness. If ASPD is the cause of an individual’s incarceration, then their successful reintegration into society relies on treating the underlying diagnosis, and in order to do that, it is important to understand the neurobiological foundations of ASPD.

Chapter twelve covers the topic of Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that affects many people across all socioeconomic groups. On page 373 of the text the story of Andrea Yates (the mother who drowned her five children) is discussed. Like many women after giving birth Andrea Yates suffered from post partum depression and other psychotic disorders. But like many people with similar mental health issues she and her husband chose not to seek treatment for her mental condition either due to ignorance or their religious beliefs. Unfortunately Andrea Yates “snapped” (had a mental breakdown) and drowned her five children.

Shutter Island portrays multiple mental illnesses in the main character as well as in supporting characters. One might call it an abnormal psychology “goldmine.” It takes place at a water-bound psychiatric facility, Shutter Island, housing the criminally insane. The plot is about a man who refers to himself as Teddy. He believes he and his partner are detectives, on the island, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. He is also in search of a patient named Andrew Laeddis, who Teddy believes murdered his wife. The detective becomes paranoid that the facility is treating the patients unfairly and performing experimental lobotomies. The delusion goes on for several months, Teddy never realizing he is actually a patient, until he is brought back to reality at the climax of the movie. His delusion ends. He realizes he’s a patient for a very short amount of time before he goes back to believing he’s a detective. The delusion starts all over again. Throughout most of the film, viewers see his delusion as a reality, until the twist at the end when it is revealed that he is actually a patient.