Schizophrenia After Prison Essay

The Frontline episode “The New Asylums”, dove into the crisis mentally ill inmates face in the psychiatric ward in Ohio state prisons. The episode shows us the conditions and every day lives of mentally ill patients in Ohio state prisons, and explains how these inmates got to this point. It appeared that most of these prisoners should have been patients in an institute of some sort, out in society, but unfortunately due to whatever circumstances they ended up in prison. According to the episode, most of the inmates end up in prison due to them not coping with the outside world on their own. Prior to becoming imprisoned, the inmates had difficulties dealing with the outside world. Mainly due to lack of necessary

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.

The video focused on one prison in particular. In this prison, there is proper medication, psychiatrists, and nurses. The main issue with this is that most of the mentally ill inmates have never had that level of proper care, so the prison system is hard to leave. However, the prison system is not designed to provide mental health treatment. It is supposed to provide community safety and security. As the video progressed, it stated the routines of the staff that is employed within the prison. When acute care is required, the inmates are put into the infirmary where they can be given the attention they need. However, providing effective care in a prison is described to be quite difficult. Many mentally ill individuals become extremely depressed, hopeless, and suicidal. They may also result in self-harm acts, delusions, and hallucinations. The video stated that obtaining parole is quite difficult for mentally ill inmates. If they are lucky enough to be released, they are sent out with two weeks of medication. On the down side, most do not receive the services they require and that usually results in them committing another crime and ending back in jail or

I believe so many are diagnosed with mental illness in the criminal justice system due to their repetitive actions of law breaking. In the beginning, these offenders are unaware a mental illness exists. So many offenders have pre-existing mental illnesses which are untreated; others may acquire a mental illness while incarcerated. This could be due to aging, or an occurrence which takes place in prison such as segregation. Separating humans from and isolating them from any population is

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.

This is unacceptable and a major issue in a broken criminal justice system. Diagnosed mentally ill patients should not be in prison, they need help that only a mental health facility can offer them. There is a difference between being mentally ill and being a criminal. It is no secret that the state has used the prison system as a dumping ground for the mentally ill. Common sense would lead an observer to conclude that a prison environment is not the best place for a person who is suffering from mental illness.

In 2011 New York made law known as the “SHU Exclusion Law”. The law states that if there are 200 inmates have been moved from solitary into special mental health units’ hundreds of others remain in isolation because of questions over their diagnosis. The law 's prohibition applies only to those with “serious mental illness,” including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. The prisoners can’t pay for the treatment that they are getting because they are in jail so they can’t work so the taxpayer has to pay for their treatment that they need. For the people that have a mental illness that are in prison there is not that many that are diagnosis. There is a lot of them that have a mental illness that is not diagnosis.

Although most state and federal prison systems provide some discharge planning for HIV-infected inmates, those services vary widely in quality. “For example, three-quarters of prison systems make referrals for HIV treatment/medications, Medicaid benefits, or sexually transmitted disease treatment. However, fewer than one-third of the correctional facilities report actually making appointments for releasees with specific treatment providers. Even providing appointments, while an important first step, does not ensure that the person receives services. Another important barrier is the time it takes for many returning inmates to finalize their enrollment in various benefit programs”. (Travis, Solomon, Waul) Mental health issues are also a huge problem for those recently released. While they are incarcerated they are able to get all the help they need but, once released have difficulty continuing to get the help. “More than half (60 percent) of mentally ill state inmates have reportedly received some form of mental health treatment during their period of incarceration. Of these, half said they had taken prescription medication and percent had received counseling services. Ensuring the successful reintegration of ex-prisoners with mental disorders depends, at

Reid (2008) notes that the mentally challenged present a serious challenge to our prison systems. He reports that over 50 percent of all inmates have mental health problems, with a high percentage of both jail and prison inmates meeting the criteria for psychotic disorders. Society does not know how to

In this week’s readings chapter twelve is about schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder in which personal, social, and occupational functioning deteriorate as a result of strange perceptions, unusual emotions, and motor abnormalities. This disorder is very interesting, but also kind of scary to me. They literally end up in their own world, losing contact with reality. With that, they also experience hallucinations or delusions, which can cause them to do abnormal, possibly dangerous actions. These symptoms must last six months or more before the person can be diagnosed with schizophrenia. It will affect 1 out of 100 people in the world during ones lifetime. This disorder, unlike many others, is just as common among men and women,

The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails: A State Survey , indicated that there are 356,000 mentally ill prisoners in comparison to 35,000 patients in public hospitals. The survey also illustrated the contracts for dealing with mentally ill offenders who are weakening, have constituted barriers that leave mentally ill offenders without treatment for long periods of time specifically in county jails (Torrey, Zdanowicz, Kennard, et. al,

The concern among the psychological and sociological groups that there is a high number of prison inmates the suffer from mental illness, and that the current facilities that house these individuals are far from adequate in treatment, housing, and managing these individuals (Holton, 2003). These are acceptable concerns although there is no real answer to lowering the recidivism rates of persons that suffer from mental illness except from warehousing these people with little to no treatment, however this does not mean that there is not an effort to elevate these issues even though from the outside it appears only for show.

Introduction The US has the highest incarceration rates in the world. Although the United States accounts for only 5% of the global population, it holds around a quarter of the world’s total prison population (Collier, 2014). American jails and prisons have become home to a disproportionate number of mentally ill individuals. At least half of all prison inmates in the United States suffer from mental health issues, while approximately 25% of inmates have serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, according to a report from the National Research Council (2014).

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

Mentally ill inmates face and go through many challenges every day in the correctional service system. They face cautious situations on a daily base. The adjustments on caring for them are expensive and take time for the mentally ill inmates to develop. However, the assistance they get is more than beneficial for them.