Mental Illnessness

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.

Authors in this article from the University of California observe and focus on the risks and rates involved in people that have a mental disorder and correlate it with incarceration as well as people with re-incarceration. While performing these studies researchers found an alarming number of people incarcerated had a severe mental illness and substance abuse issues. Much of the knowledge in numbers of people with a mental illness are brought from a correctional view, but researchers here try to also focus on numbers of people in the public mental health system as well.

According to a study the department of psychiatric in the university of Texas health science center. at Houston, 112 criminals were assessed and it determined that with in that group the criminals action is related to ASPD (anti social personality disorder) symptoms, a recurrent and predominately manic course of illness, and bipolar disorder. There are many articles that such as " Occurrence of psychiatric disorder in county jail population", that because of mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder. Can greatly influence violent criminal behavior because of the sever mood changes the illness can cause to the suffer.

The recent increase in emergency 9-1-1 calls involving mentally ill persons has heightened the awareness of the Criminal Justice System. Across the nation, law enforcement encounters with mentally ill persons have become more frequent, and the use of deadly force against mentally ill persons has increased. Since the deinstitutionalization of the mental health system, law enforcement officials have been tasked with controlling deviant and sometimes criminal behavior of persons who suffer from mental illness. As a result, law enforcement agencies have implemented crisis intervention training (CIT) and diversion tactics due to the numerous challenges faced when serving the mentally ill. Major deficiencies in the mental health system and State legislations have hindered progressive efforts towards assisting mentally ill persons. With the dramatic consequences associated with untreated mental illness, it is certain that law enforcement officers will experience an encounter requiring knowledge, specialized training, and the ability to build collaborative partnerships.

“The Memphis Police Department, CIT are police-based pre booking approach with specially trained officers that provide first line response to calls involving a person with mental illness and who acts as liaisons to the mental health system. Rooted in the problem solving approach, the Memphis Model aims to address the issues underlying the reason for the call than simply incapacitating the individual and removing him or her for the community.”(Draine,J.,Ottati,V.,Schaefer,M.Watson,A.2008. pg.361) Many of the models around the

Furthermore, there are a number of barriers that prevent police from effectively dealing with people who have a mental illness. These include gaps in the community mental health service, and mix feelings about the nature of the responsibility when officers are responding to mental illness calls (Adelman, 2003). Barriers that are involve is, the inadequate advance information, when a situation arise police dispatchers do not ask for more information of what to expect when arriving to the scene as well any specific detail about the mental ill person such as, if the person has previously contacted the police before. Not

This essay will look at the public understanding of the nature of mental disorder and to what extent it is associated with dangerousness and violence. The essay will begin by exploring the public’s perspectives and opinions on the matter and the impact that the mentally ill have on crime rates. Specific social perspectives will also be explored..

The system is broken, and I do not expect police to get the required training to become the first responders for mental health just to have to arrest the perpetrator again two days later. That is not fair for our police officers who are going to get the training. I think a big problem between police officers and people with mental health is the stigma society has created towards mental health. People especially police officers assume people with mental health are going to be violent and that is how police officers are trained to handle a situation. If someone is violent police immediately get prepared for the situation to escalate. Police officers may draw their guns to be prepared to do anything possible for the safety of the public, but I do not think that is always the right approach. Nurses in a hospital do not carry a gun, but in some cases they have patients who threaten them and the patient might have a weapon, but they do not have a way to defend themselves they have the training and knowledge on mental health to defuse the situation. I think we can train police to be able to defuse a situation. Police officers need to step away from the stigma on mental health to do

The criminalization hypothesis implies that within the criminal justice system those who suffer from a serious mental illness are over represented because they are arrested and committed for actions caused by their untreated mental illness (Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). This implies that the environmental obstacles faced by the mentally ill directly lead to their arrest.

In this article Constantine et al. identify the characteristics and experiences of those arrested and those within the prison system with a serious mental illness who were connected to misdemeanour (summary offences) and felony (indictable offences) arrests and additional days in prison. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between individual characteristics and personal experiences and the risks of arrests for misdemeanours and felonies as well as additional days spent in prison, it is proposed that differences may suggest the presence of ‘subgroups’ within the population of those arrested with a serious mental illness. Their approach to the study used a retrospective cohort design, where data was recorded longitudinally across 16 quarter (90 day periods) using data from the Pinellas Country Criminal Justice System coupled with all available service data sets in which diagnostic information was accessible. The data was matched through Link-King probabilistic-deterministic and unduplication software. Their research focuses on assessing the impact of individual characteristics and personal experiences on the risks of misdemeanour and felony arrests as well as

This case study is to research in depth by data collection to identify behavioral, cognitive and/or emotional qualities of events or situations involving police shootings of sane as well as mentally ill suspects. The essay’s issue is the need for mandatory policy changes (body cameras and police punishments made into law) due to recent negative events on both sides. The data collection is given in examples of killings or injuries from both sides, pertaining to how more police will get hurt (as well as more suspects injured or killed) if these changes aren’t put into effect by policy makers. The behavioral aspect were the actions of all those involved, from current counties already implementing legislative changes to the fact that

More research is also needed in reference to citizens experiencing mental health and substance abuse issues. It appears that more force might be considered necessary when dealing with citizens who are under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The fact is that some people who are under the influence of drugs are harmless and tend to put up little resistance. Individuals with mental health concerns also vary in terms of resistance ; thus, it is very difficult to conduct research in reference to this population. Perhaps it is the perception of police officers that might be correlated to use of force pertaining to dealing with these types of individuals. More research is needed in reference to the number of officers who

illness has the potential to take full control over a person’s life, creating many obstacles from

Literature Analysis and Research Proposal of the Correlation between Mental Illness and Violence and Crime

     Linda A. Teplin says that “police involvement with mentally ill persons is grounded in two common law principles: (1) The power and responsibility of the police to protect the safety and