What can be done The monitoring, prevention and treatment of mental disorders, as well as the promotion of good mental health, are part of the public health goals in prisons. According to World Health Organization (2017), even in resource-limited countries, measures can be taken to improve the mental health of prisoners and prison staffs, which can be adapted to the country’s cultural, social, political and economic environment (WHO, 2017). In the British prisons, some practices and policies have also been implemented, which reflect the positive impacts of prisoners’ mental health and wellbeing. Provide prisoners with appropriate mental health treatment and care. Prisons’ general health services should include regular assessment for prisoners, …show more content…
Provide training to all prison staff on mental health issues. Training should reinforce staff understanding of mental disorders, raise awareness on human rights, challenge stigmatizing attitudes and encourage mental health promotion for guards and inmates. In addition, prison health workers need more specialized skills to identify and manage the prisoners’ mental health. According to HM Prison Probation & Service (2018), prison staff ‘keep those sentenced to prison in custody, helping them lead law-abiding and useful lives, both while they are in prison and after they are released.’ It believes that prison staff will play a huge part in the life of an offender, helping them to learn and develop new skills (HM Prison Probation & Service, …show more content…
Moreover, due to the institutional nature of prisons, inmates may receive mental impacts in their prison experience, resulting in different levels of mental health damage to prisoners. Finally, the issues of prisons in the UK needs to be constantly solved, and the pain of incarceration on prisoners deserves more attention. As Justice Secretary Liz Truss said, prisons faced ‘long-standing issues that will not be resolved in
In this sense, it is obvious that the PIC system falls short of prioritizing and appropriately addressing incarcerated individuals' mental health needs. This failure has serious consequences since it can worsen underlying mental health difficulties and contribute to a recurrence cycle, undermining rehabilitation and public safety efforts. This is a critical issue that must be addressed to ensure the well-being and rehabilitation of individuals incarcerated. However, it does not hide the fact that PIC does not prioritize the mental health of inmates and provides the necessary resources. The article "Analyzing the Relationship between Mental Health Courts and the Prison Industrial Complex” by Helen Zhou and Elizabeth B. Ford, investigated how mental health courts intersect with and possibly support the prison industrial complex.
More people get incarcerated for non-violent crimes and crimes caused by mental illnesses or drug abuse (Webb, 2009) and because these people get put in regular prisons, instead of in mental health facilities or facilities to help against drug addiction, where they could be treated to further prevent crimes driven by their illness (Webb, 2009), the prisons get overfilled and cannot hold the more ‘important’ prisoners that needed to be locked away from the public. A strong link of the criminal justice process is that the system tries to keep it fair for everyone. Every defendant has the right to an attorney so they can be defended properly and fairly and “Only judges who are adequately informed about a case can effectively control the proceedings and examine evidence” (Tochilovsky, 2002) It is also important for the criminal justice system that those involved show discretion and although this is not always the case, discretion by the judges, police, etc.
Also receiving the treatment within the jail will allow them to continue to practice safe habits when released rather than behaving criminally and impulsively bringing them back to prison. The National Alliance on Mental Illness believes that prisoners with mental health deserve access to quality mental health treatment. They give statistics to prove that mental illnesses within jails are a big problem and later provide links to what they have already done to help mentally ill prisoners in jails not receiving the treatment they need. The author believes, “People with mental illness who are incarcerated deserve access to appropriate mental health treatment, including screening, regular and timely access to mental health providers, and access to medications and programs that support recovery”(“Treatment While Incarcerated”). To be able to involve all of these different types of treatments, prisons first need to be able to include educated staff.
" If you shout or scream, your time in solitary is extended; if you hurt yourself by refusing to eat or mutilating your body, your time in solitary is extended; if you complain to officers or say anything menacing or inappropriate, your time in solitary is extended. " They overuse their power; they take their job way too personally. To close, prisoner abuse and the disregard for human dignity described in Just Mercy highlight how the urgent need for reform within the correction system is very wrong for those who are in positions of power to prioritize their responsibilities over personal
International prison population statistics have found that the female prison population is increasing at a faster rate than the male prison population. Research has confirmed that, in the majority of countries, the male imprisonment rate is predominantly larger than that of the female imprisonment rate, however this does not apply to indigenous women within Australia. Overwhelming research shows that the imprisonment rate for indigenous women within Australia has increased at a significantly faster rate compared to indigenous males, most clearly highlighted through the general trends in prison rates within the last decade. This essay will discuss how the presence of indigeneity plays a key role in explaining the disparity between male and female imprisonment rates, further explaining why indigenous women are incarcerated at significantly highly rates. Moreover, there are numerous sociological and criminological theories, which provide an explanation for the disparity of male and female imprisonment rates.
Confinement is considered to be harmful to an inmate’s mental health. Lengthier stays in solitary have been associated with more mental health symptoms, resulting in extreme emotional and behavioral consequences. Depending on the individual and the length of the stay in confinement the emotional effects can range from acute to chronic. Deprived of social interaction, a stimulus humans need to stay healthy and to be able to function properly, many mental health issues have been reported by the isolated inmates. This can include anxiety, panic, paranoia, insomnia, aggression, depression, self-harm, and thoughts of suicide.
First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That 's institutionalized.’ A prison should aim at retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. I am very well convinced that prison has served its first three purposes by depriving offenders’ freedom, but the
The major problem we have today is that prisons shouldn't deal with taking care of the mentally ill, that's the mental hospital facilities job. The people that work in this type of setting need to be patient with the mentally ill. Its not easy to deal with people that are mentally ill, they require so much attention. Putting mentally ill people in a prison is the worst thing to do, it makes their mental illness worse due to being in isolation.
Also, the correctional facilities help inmates with mental illness
Even family members of the prisoner individual can be affected by their family members time, the individuals family members have been reported to suffer from issues such as stress, mental disorders such as depression and anxiety as well as eating disorders, all because someone close to them is in prison. Not only can it affect the individual emotionally, it can also affect them socially and affect their ability to find a career after prison as they may be untrusted as law abiding
According to the website Prison Policy, 43% of people in state prisons were diagnosed with mental disorders, and 66% of people disclosed not being offered mental health care while in the prison system. (Prison Policy). Whether that is due to money, or time, something about these numbers needs to decrease, which needs to happen fast. Prison systems are meant to rehabilitate criminals, but without help, this is near impossible to do. Mindfulness lessons will allow prisoners to complete more mental health care on their own time.
The shift is attributed to the unexpected clinical needs of this new outpatient population, the inability of community mental health centers to meet these needs, and the changes in mental health laws (Pollack & Feldman, 2003). Thousands of mentally ill people flowing in and out of the nation 's jails and prisons. In many cases, it has placed the mentally ill right back where they started locked up in facilities, but these jail and prison facilities are ill-equipped to properly treat and help them. In 2006 the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that there were; 705,600 mentally ill inmates in state prisons, 78,000 in federal prisons, and
In prison, women face two major problems: drug abuse and mental health issues. Drug abuse issues exist in prison; since most of the sentencing that goes on in America is drug user-related, it is only logical that the problem of drug abuse and drug users would be concentrated in prison. A statistic from the American Psychology Association claims that, “75 percent of women met the criteria for substance abuse problems,” (Clark). This is a problem in prison hospitals and trained staff are lacking in order to help women with their drug addictions,
Also, some prisons are provided with psychiatrists to help prisoners deal with mental disorders and psychological issues which will help with mental
Mental health issues are on the rise, especially among the youth, 6 out of 10 young people do not receive mental health treatment for major depression. Currently over 40 million Americans are currently dealing with a mental health issue and 56 percent are not receiving proper treatment. (Mental Health America). The health care reform has reduced insurance premiums for adults who have a mental health condition, however premiums and copayments are still not affordable for everyone. With the rise of mental health issues, the funding for mental illness should also increase to meet the need.