Pros And Cons Of Deinstitutionalization

Institutional care was condemned, as in many cases patients’ mental conditions deteriorated, and institutions were not able to treat the individual in a holistic manner. In many state institutions, patients numerously outnumbered the poorly trained staff. Many patients were boarded in these facilities for extensive periods of time without receiving any services. By 1963, the average stay for an individual with a diagnosis of schizophrenia was eleven years. As the media and newspapers publicized the inhumane conditions that existed in many psychiatric hospitals, awareness grew and there was much public pressure to create improved treatment options (Young Minds Advocacy, 2016). .

With states closing many of its mental facilities in the communities, there were a lot of people in need of outpatient care who fell through the cracks of the system and ended up in prison. Prison is where many of them died from inadequate treatment. Prisons were suddenly receiving inmates with the following types of mental illnesses: Schizophrenia, bipolar, and deep depressions. These prisons just did not provide these inmates with any medication during their incarceration. Because the community based health services is lacking, and patients aren’t receiving sufficient outpatient care, it makes the effectiveness of deinstitutionalization a serious problem. Without the availability of 24/7 psychiatric services that are well structured, I believe that deinstitutionalization is what is accounting for the increase of the mentally ill inmates in the correctional facility.

The introduction of new psychotic drugs can provide better or more thorough care for the mentally ill. Creating options rather than one solution may have been believed to do greater good for the mentally ill community. Furthermore, the economic incentives involved as long term care was and continues to be at such a high cost. Community resources cost little to nothing for the federal Government to support. As well as releasing the mentally ill to their families, in any case those with minor illnesses. Additionally, a shift from treating chronic patients to treating acute ones would generate basic sense into the minds of many. This modification states through actions that

Many years ago, mental illness was viewed as a demonic possession or a religious punishment. In the 18th century, the attitudes towards mental illness were negative and persistent. This negativity leads to the stigmatization and confinement of those who were mentally ill. The mentally ill were sent to mental hospitals that were unhealthy and dangerous. A push in the mid 1950s for deinstitutionalization began because of activists lobbying for change. Dorothea Dix was one of these activists that helped push for change. The change called for more community oriented care rather than asylum based care. The Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 closed state psychiatric hospitals throughout the United States. "Only individuals who posed an imminent danger to themselves or someone else could be committed to state psychiatric hospitals" (A Brief History of Mental Illness and the U.S. Mental Health Care System). Deinstitutionalization meant to improve quality of life and treatment for those who are mentally ill. This would hopefully result in the mentally ill receiving treatment so they could live more independently. The hope was that community mental health programs would provide this treatment but sadly there was not sufficient or ongoing funding to meet the growing demand for these programs. Budgets for mental hospitals were reduced but there was no increase for the community based programs. Many mentally ill individuals have been moved to nursing homes or other residential

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

Throughout the years, the United States criminal justice system has been constantly incarcerating individuals who endure from a severe mental illness. People who suffer from serious mental illness are doubtlessly to be discovered in prison. There is a significant amount of mentally ill offenders that are placed in the state and federal institutions. The mentally ill are overpopulating the prisons. The criminal justice system is a deficiency for those who can profit more from the help of mental health treatment center or psychiatric hospital by sending individuals to correctional facilities or prisons. Today’s jails and prisons are being labeled as the new mental health hospitals for the mentally ill offenders. Commonly in today’s society, it generally takes other individuals who are willing to educate and support the mentally ill person into becoming successful in life.

Furthermore, tremendous advances have been made in the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses in the recent decades. Nowadays, someone with a mental illness is treated with respect, just like every other person, because, in fact, everyone is equal. Society’s goals today are to treat and support the mentally ill individuals enough so they can live in

Before 1955, the mentally ill took shelter in mental facility institutions. After 1955, the United States’ deinstitutionalized these facilities and made policy changes to the mental illness treatment system. However, those policy changes are flawed. Some say rather than abandoning mentally ill patients and depriving them of shelter, the United States government should change the way the mentally ill are treated in their current living situations. Instead of changing the attitudes of those who provide services to the mentally ill, it would be more beneficial to change the services themselves.

The conditions of psychiatric hospitals were poorly maintained yet again. From the late 1800s until the mid-1900s, the conditions of these institutions were hit or miss. Despite the rising population of those in need of mental health treatment, conditions were deteriorating across the board. This pushed in the deinstitutionalization movement (Nevid, Rathus, & Green, 2014). This was a push to remove patients from state-run hospitals into a more community-based treatment center. In most cases today, there are treatment plans in place depending upon the severity of the disorder an individual may be suffering from. It’s more about treating an individual with any variety of modern techniques or therapies and trying to reintegrate them into society rather than a lifelong stay in an institution. Deinstitutionalization didn’t work the way it was intended. After it was put into place there was a rise in the homeless population and different programs that were supposed to be put into place didn’t live up to

Over the past thirty years, there has been a 500% increase in the U.S incarceration rate. (The Sentencing project, 2014) Advances in medicine, such as the discovery of psychoactive drugs, led to the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill patients from psychiatric hospitals. With a long record of horrific abuse,

Deinstitutionalization is defined as the movement of severely mentally ill people out of large state institutions. In the 1950s, public hospitals housed well over 500,000 people. The reduction in the number of institutionalized people began in 1956. By 1980, the residential population in mental hospitals dropped by nearly three-quarters, an average of 154,000 individuals. This decrease is due to the process of closing public hospitals and transferring patients to community-based mental health services. Consequently, community services were implemented (Talbott 2004).

Evaluation and treatment of the mentally ill population has developed from confinement of the mad during colonial times, into the biomedical balancing of neurological impairment seen in these modern times. There were eras of mental health reform, medicalization, and deinstitutionalization sandwiched in between (Nies & McEwen, 2011). Regardless of the stage of understanding and development, communities have not been completely successful in dealing with and treating persons who are mentally unwell. Fortunately, treatment has become more compassionate; social and professional attitudes have morphed into more humanistic and

The theory of ‘deinstitutionalization’ began arising with the theory of providing more freedom to the mentally ill and less spending on full time care facilities. The widespread use of drugs to control the mentally ill in the 1900s led to a mass release of patients and an emptying of asylums. Outpatient Psychiatric Clinics were established. Case Law in the United States began to be generated to provide the mentally ill with greater rights. Shelton v. Tucker 1960 provided that the mentally ill should receive care in the “least restrictive alternative”, which is a practice still utilized. O’Connor v. Donaldson 1975 ruled that non-dangerous mental patients have the right to be treated or discharged if they have been institutionalized against their will. This new approached permitted the mass exodus

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other word would smell as sweet."

Mental Health has been recognized, as the well-being at which individuals are able to cope with everyday stresses, and work productively while contributing back to their community. Mental Health America began in the early 1900’s by Clifford W. Beers, a former psychiatric patient who experienced mental/physical abuse during his stay in public and private institutions. It wasn’t until short after a reform group emerged, to stand against the abuse and ill-treatment at these institutions. In this paper, I will be discussing the history/background of Mental Health Services, and how quality, access, cost or other factors have changed (or how they haven’t). I also will be discussing the populations that benefit from this type of service and the significant issues, and or problems within the area that impact specific populations. Lastly, I will interpret national policy, legislation, attitudes, political climate, and how they impact or relate to the problems discussed, then I will address two current issues discussed along with clarifying each discussion.