The Effects Of Mental Health, Crazy, By Pete Earley

When it comes to mental illness, there is no denying that it is one of the most intractable problems in our day-to-day lives. About 500,000 mentally ill people are in jails or prisons in the United States, while 50,000 are treated in psychiatric hospitals. People often can’t help asking if jails or prisons are really the new asylums for those who are mentally ill? I used to think that it is hard to answer, but now I will not hesitate to say “No!” after watching the video “The New Asylums”.

The deinstitutionalization of state mental hospitals has left many individuals untreated and in the community where there come under police scrutiny due to their odd behavior, that is a manifestation of their illness. Majority of mentally ill offenders have not committed a serious crime and are subjected to inappropriate arrest and incarceration (Soderstrom, 2008). This new policy has become quite a concern to the fact that the correctional environment has proven to show no positive results in the mental health of the offender during their time of incarceration or upon their release date and thereafter (Soderstrom, 2008).

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

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.

In this article, the incarceration of the mentally ill is encouraged because it is safer than keeping them in mental institutions. It claims that mental institutions are extremely dangerous by their very nature and the nurses there are trained to treat the mentally ill, not to keep them from hurting themselves or other people. In prisons however, the

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.

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

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.

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.

Earley highlights this with his son as he leaves the hospital system and is processed through the judicial system. The next responsibility is to understand where we are in a system and where we need to go. The book portrayed Mike, Earley’s son, could not be hospitalized unless he voluntarily committed himself or verbalized harm towards himself or others. It was clear to Earley, who knew his son’s baseline, was deescalating further into psychosis. The situation explains how we can get assistance for clients who may not be able to make adequate decisions in a psychotic episode. Lastly, the clinician should develop a strategic plan of how to achieve the desired results, and the key participants involved. Earley researched the systems involved for over a year before he concluded writing a book would reach the vast of persons involved. He interviewed and studied the systems involved to strategically plan how he could assist his son.

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,

I was not surprised to discover that half of all inmates had a mental illness (Hoke 3015). Hoke analyzes the social elements that make an impact on those persons with known mental illnesses in prison. Noting policy changes that have increased prison rates for mentally ill people, Hoke presents a good argument on how mentally ill inmates are treated within the criminal justice system. Her research seemed to be thorough and convincing. She maintains the idea that mentally ill inmates do need help making a successful transition upon release through steady employment and housing.

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

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.