Introduction of the Problem After the “deinstitutionalization” of the mental hospitals in the United States during the 1960s there has been a great increase in the amount of persons with serious mental illness incarcerate in jails and prisons (Torrey et al., 2014, p. 6). The incarceration of a mental ill person is inhumane and should be illegal. This action not only causes a deterioration of the individual that is suffering from the illness but causes problems with other inmates, the jail and prison staff, and the public. The inability to provide the proper treatment to these subjects through the criminal justice system is an emotional and financial burden for all parties involved. Mentally ill persons who have said to committed crimes should …show more content…
Prison and jail officials are not equipped with the knowledge, training nor medical equipment to provide treatment to the mentally ill once they are booked into the jail. State legislature’s ignorance to the issue is apparent in the lack of mental health laws that are in place. The primary cause of the mentally ill behind locked behind bars versus receiving treatment is due to lack of knowledge. The public is blind to the facts because it is an easy fix to lock someone up so that the public is not disturbed by the person’s behavior. Tennessee state law proposes that an involuntary treatment can be mandated if the subject has expressed or committed the acts of wanting to harm himself or herself or another person. The United States averages 30,000 suicides a year and is a result of a mental illness that is treatable (Turner, 2014, p. 1). No laws are in place that covers the alternative of court ordered treatment for a person with a serious mental illness versus the individual being incarcerated at a jail or prison. This is causing overpopulation in these facilities, the deterioration of the individuals’ psychiatric symptoms, and demanding more money from taxpayers (Torrey et al., 2014, p. …show more content…
State legislators should construct laws that mandate intake screenings of all prisoners before placement in a facility. Pre-booking programs should be conducted by specialized officers trained in mental illness who would intercept subjects entering the jail and conduct a screening prior to booking in efforts to “prevent arrest through de-escalation by transporting persons to mental health centers for assessment rather than jail” (p.8). State laws should mandate treatment in a secure mental facility for the duration of their court sentence. The implantation of mental health courts would be an option of a jail diversion program that could help provide treatment (p.8). This allows the subject to be held accountable for the crime that they have committed but allows the possibility of treatment and closing the revolving door. Most individuals that have a mental illness are subject to returning to jail or prison because there is no establishment of treatment for these people (p.12). Costs studies should be conducted to evaluate the most effective way to use the taxpayers’ money. The money is going to be spent, it is just an argument of which way is most beneficial to all people. Paying the money to the jail to acted as a over secured medicine cabinet is senseless when there is a possibility for the money to be used
As a whole, literature on the topic of mental illness in our country and specifically in our criminal justice system had a reoccurring theme. There are millions of individuals who suffer from mental illness but are improperly being handled through the criminal justice system. These individuals are deemed criminal just by their acts and their mental health state is not overly examine. Jails and prisons are being overcrowded. State prisons and jails are overpopulated anywhere from 15 to 32% (Spending Money in All the Wrong Places: Jails & Prisons).
In recent years, correctional facilities have begun to experience an influx of inmates who suffer with mental illness. Per Morgan, et al (2011), ?the United States has three times more individuals with severe mental illnesses in prisons than in psychiatric hospitals.? Most prisons in this country aren?t equipped to properly care for the mentally ill persons who enter the facility. Individuals with mental illness are more likely to be placed in prisons rather than a mental health institution to receive help to deal
Despite the fact that my parents have worked in the criminal justice system for many years, I have never given much thought to the treatment of prisoners. As we learned from the readings, the current state of the United States criminal justice system is imperfect to the point of cruelty to those involved in it. This is truer for individuals with a mental illness. Due to a lack of psychiatric facilities throughout Alabama and overcrowding of those that do exist, many criminal offenders with mental illnesses are sent to prisons instead. State prisons are currently overcrowded, leading to substandard conditions such in almost every aspect.
Jails and prisons are not set up to meet the treatment and accountability needs of the mentally ill (“Mental Health Court”, n.d.). “Inmates with mental illnesses are more likely than other to be held in solitary confinement, and many are raped, commit suicide, or hurt themselves” (Swanson, 2014). Making mental health courts mandatory would better address these needs by offering treatment,
Individuals suffering from mental illnesses tend to fall victim to the criminal justice system due to their uncontrollable actions that result from their mental illness symptoms. Within the United States two to three hundred thousand people in prison suffer from mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, severe depression, and bipolar disorder. Sadly, the majority of prisons are deficient in providing the appropriate resources to treat these individuals; people with mental illnesses are too frequently socially mistreated, neglected, and misunderstood within the confines of a prison. Prisons are deficient in correctional staff trained to suit mentally ill inmates, in
The incarceration of those who are mentally ill is on the continual rise. Many states juggle with the decision of placing offenders in Mental Hospital or locating them in State Prisons. Latessa and Holsinger (2011) discuss two major reasons for the increase of those with mental illness within the prison system. First, many states have no longer allow for the insanity plea during criminal trials, thus those who suffer from mental illness are not required to receive mandatory mental treatment. This is due to the discomforting idea that criminal offenders should not be given the same living conditions as those whom are patients of mental wards. Secondly, longer sentences have created a surplus of mentally ill offenders needing treatment. Soderstrom (2007) added that the lack of mental health support systems in
Given the number of incarcerated inmates who suffer from some form of mental illness, there are growing concerns and questions in the medical field about treatment of the mentally ill in the prison system. When a person with a mental illness commits a crime or break the law, they are immediately taken to jail or sent off to prison instead of being evaluated and placed in a hospital or other mental health facility. “I have always wondered if the number of mentally ill inmates increased since deinstitutionalization” Since prison main focus is on the crimes inmates are incarcerated; the actual treatment needed for the mentally ill is secondary. Mentally ill prisoners on the surface may appear to be just difficult inmates depending on the
The shutdown of state mental hospitals and lack of available financial and institutional resources force mentally ill people to the United States Judicial System for mental health. Every year thousands of people are arrested for various crimes and they are sent to jail. Sixteen percent of these people have some type of mental health problem (Public Broadcasting System , 2001). When we consider that the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world at 2.2 million, this number is staggering (Anasseril E. Daniel, 2007). This is about 1% of the entire population of the United States. There are many reasons as to why the situation has taken such a bad turn and when the history of the treatment of mental illness is examined one can see how the situation developed into the inhumane disaster it is today.
About one in three state prisons 1 of 4 federal prisons and 1 of 6 jail inmates have a mental health problem and did not receive treatment since admission. I believe that we should bring or make a facility for those with mental disorders, not because they don’t know from right or wrong it is just that they need to be paid more attention too than a regular inmate, being mentally ill already is enough for that person imagine ill and caged patients not receiving correct treatment. The estimate of 56 percent of state prisoners, 45 percent federal prisoners, and 64 percent of jail inmates have a mental health problem; one of the most common health problems is autism and schizophrenia. It is horrible how in these times mentally ill people are turned into inmates. We also changed hospitals into jails and prisons. Now mostly ever homeless on the street has a mental
Today, it seems almost incomprehensible that so many people with serious mental illnesses reside in prisons instead of receiving treatment. Over a century and a half ago, reform advocates like Dorothea Dix campaigned for prison reform, urging lawmakers to house the mentally ill in hospitals rather than in prisons. The efforts undertaken by Dix and other like-minded reformers were successful: from around 1870 to 1970, most of the United States’ mentally ill population was housed in hospitals rather than in prisons. Considering reformers made great strides in improving this situation over a century and a half ago. Granted, mental hospitals in the late 19th and early 20th century were often badly run and critically flawed, but rather than pushing for reform of these hospitals, many politicians lobbied for them to close their doors, switching instead to a community-based system for treating the mentally ill. Although deinstitutionalization was originally understood as a humane way to offer more suitable services to the mentally ill in community-based settings, some politicians seized upon it as a way to save money by shutting down institutions without providing any meaningful treatment alternatives. This callousness has created a one-way road to prison for massive numbers of impaired individuals and the inhumane warehousing of thousands of mentally ill people. Nevertheless, there are things that can be done to lower the rate mentally ill persons are being incarcerated. Such
The United States criminal justice system has been continuously increasing incarceration among individuals who suffer from a sever mental illness. As of 2007 individuals with severe mental illness were over twice as likely to be found in prisons than in society (National Commission of Correctional Health Care, 2002, as cited in Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). The offenses that lead to their commitment in a criminal facility, in the majority of cases, derive from symptoms of their mental illness instead of deviant behavior. Our criminal justice system is failing those who would benefit more from the care of a psychiatric rehabilitation facility or psychiatric hospital by placing them in correctional facilities or prisons.
“In a 2006 Special Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimated that 705,600 mentally ill adults were incarcerated in state prisons, 78,800 in federal prisons and 479,900 in local jails. Growing numbers of mentally ill offenders have strained correctional systems” (NIC, n.d.). Often times it is wondered why mentally ill offenders are imprisonment time are lengthier than other offenders? Could it be that it may be hard to comprehend and abide by prison and jail rules, or are there not enough facilities to aide their need? Moreover, pretrial offenders with severe mental illness encounter longer imprisonment time than other prisoners in many states, and they would require a mental evaluation assessment to stand trial. “The prevalence of mental illness among offender populations indicates a substantial need for mental health treatment. Today, the largest US jails and prisons hold more people with mental illnesses and co-occurring substance use disorders than many inpatient psychiatric facilities” (Kim, Becker-Cohen & Serakos, 2015).
This research paper discusses the issues of people who suffer from mental illness being placed in jails instead of receiving the necessary treatment they need. The number of inmates serving time in jail or prison who suffer from mental illness continues to rise. In 2015 the Bureau of Justice reported that sixty five percent of state prisoners and fourth five percent of federal prisoners suffered from mental conditions such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Individuals who suffer from these problems require special mental health treatment for their needs to be met. Many of our prisons and jails lack the necessary resources to care for these inmates and because of that inmates who do not receive the treatment they need are at a higher risk of becoming a repeat offender. Despite the research and findings that show that the criminal justice system is unable to deal with issues dealing with the mentally ill there has been limited solutions put in place. Given the challenges the criminal justice system faces it is important to address the problem and come up with better solutions. This research paper will discuss the various techniques and solutions that scholars have propped and their effect on the issue of mentally ill criminals and how the criminal justice system should approach the problem.
Jails have been described as “de facto mental hospitals” because they have filled the void created when state psychiatric hospitals began closing in the early 1960s through a process known as deinstitutionalization. Supporters of deinstitutionalization thought the process would help individuals suffering from a mental illness live more self-reliantly while being treated by community mental health programs. However, the federal government did not provide the necessary funding to meet the mounting demand for these programs, leaving numerous untreated. Individuals with serious mental illnesses are often poor or homeless and are likely to have substance abuse problems. Therefore, when they are left untreated, they are more likely to commit minor crimes that have been the focus of law enforcement in recent years (H. Richard Lamb and Linda Weinberger).
Society’s views about the mentally ill have helped shape the criminalization of their every move. On any day there are around 283,000 people with severe mental illness currently incarcerated in federal and state prisons. In contrast, there are around only 70,000 mentally ill in psychiatric hospitals