Thoreau Mental Illness

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.

Formal options (hospitalization and arrest) may be time consuming for the officer as well as not be in the best interest for the person that is mentally ill whereas, sometimes officers are sometimes left unable to resolve the matter informally because of the inexperience and unfamiliarity with de-escalation techniques. Law enforcement officers are trained to assess the situation and take the best course of action to resolve the issues, especially when dealing with the mental health community the goal is that the situation can be resolves peacefully. However, recent interactions between law enforcement agencies and mentally ill suspects have had some disappointing results (Teplin, 2000).

This paper intends to examine the relationship between mental health (specifically individuals who exhibit mental illness) and the criminal justice system. The paper will be broken down into areas focusing on the issues that exists for and between the law enforcement officials and those who have mental illness and end up involved in the penial justice system. Individuals who have mental health issues are special cases that will be addressed within this paper with the focus being how they end upon the wrong side of the law and more importantly how they are treated by the criminal justice system when this occurs. By studying this subject from a historical context will enable the writer to establish how the criminal justice system in this country

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.

Peers of individuals who suffer from mental illness must be attentive to peculiar behavior and take all threats seriously. When people treat situations like these with care and responsibility, often the shooter’s plans are foiled. These simple steps could save countless lives.

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).

In the Article ”Where Police Violence Encounters Mental illness” Matthew Epperson informs readers of the massive amount of violent interactions police officers encounter with mentally ill people, however his main focus is not to blame the police officers but to reinforce mental health treatment. Epperson brings evidence from his experience as a social worker at the county jail “- one of my former clients who was a college student in the late 1990s and who had several tense exchanges with the police as his symptoms worsened.”(Epperson, par.3) Epperson's position on police enforcement worsening mental health issues then leads his claim that if we enforce mental health care system and police informant as one then it will resolve to keeping mentally

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 general public seems to favor the idea of increasing the reporting of mental illness in background check databases and limiting the ability of those with mental illness from gaining access to guns. In an article by James D. Calvert PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Southern Methodist University, cites a recent study done by The New England Journal of Medicine that found that both gun owners, and those who don’t own a gun agree that mental health providers should be required to report those who have threatened to hurt themselves, or others to a background database (Calvert, 76). Another article written by Jeffrey W. Swanson, PhD., a lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University, discusses how the public bases its information on what it learns from sources in the media, which “reinforces the public’s perception of a strong link between mental illness and violence.” (Swanson, 169). This perception then also helps creates a fear of people with mental illness and makes those with such problems afraid to seek voluntary treatment.

Barr says the criminal justice system is” continuously expanding,” and police have virtually no training or resources for handling people in psychiatric crises. She says in New York City, over one million people suffer from mental illness, with 100,000 people living with severe on going psychiatric problems such as schizophrenia. Additinally Barr states, an estimated 12,000 mentally ill homeless people live on the streets. She says the New York City Police Department responds to every 911 call regrading a person in psychiatric distress, regardless of whether a crime has been committed. She says annually, the New York City Police Department responds to at least 50,000 calls involving EDPs or (“emotion-ally disturbed persons”).

With mental illness identified as a very probable cause of these shootings, it is critical that the evidently poor and ineffective clinical help for mental disorders be reevaluated. A theoretical explanation for the modern prevalence of mental illness could be the increasingly optional nature of treatment: therapy is a choice, and checking into a facility or institution is

- Even though this specific article focused most of its attention on four men, this is an issue that could potentially hurt anyone who suffers from one of the many mental illnesses. However, this article does focuses primarily on four men; whose lives were ended in an instance, due to the lack of knowledge and understanding police officers have in regards to mental illnesses.

However, upon analyzing the incident involving the force of police and mentally ill, have flaws in which is why the altercation resulted in the victim’s death. In the case of Forcillo discharging the nine shots at Yatim fatally killing him, it projected his thoughts a misjudgement. In belief and through misjudgement it may be Forcillo was unaware that Yatim was under the influence of drugs, therefore his belief was that Yatim was mentally insane. By training the police force to detect the usage of drugs within the person by body language instead of finding or smelling the evidence, it will eliminate the assumption that the suspect has the intentions of their actions. Policies issuing on the topic of mental health during criminal acts are not an unlikely occurrence. Nevertheless, careful considerations should be made towards cases involving intoxication or high levels of drugs. In cases that the individual is aggressive or unresponsive to demands of the correcting officers, violent actions to detain the individual must be limited to not harm or have the individual harm themselves at any cost. The self-preservation of life mentioned in Police management of mental health crisis situations in the community: Status quo, current gaps and future directions should be the main priority

It is unclear whether or not if co-occurring disorders are responsible for frequent encounters with police officers or not. Some evidence suggests that people that do have co-occurring mental disorders have a greater involvement with the criminal justice system and increases the likelihood of subjects to engaged in deviant behavior (Morabito). Those that have mental disorders and use drugs and alcohol can complicated their treatments plans and makes them increasingly more susceptible to engage in more violent behavior and put at risk for arrest

Mental illness is an increasing problem in America. Currently about 26.2% of Americans suffer from a mental disorder. A mental illness/disorder is a medical condition that disrupts a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, and ability to relate to others and daily functions. Mental illness can affect humans of any age, race, gender and socioeconomic status. However the care that is needed to effectively cure and help the people affected by the illness is not equal for everyone here in American, especially for African Americans.