21st Century Cures Act

The need for more prisons is not really a need. I am not in favor of the there being more prisons built in this world. Serving time in prison is supposed to be as unpleasant as possible. I am also not in favor of prisoners being mistreated by other inmates and or facility staff members. There are prison guards that often beat inmates and rape female inmates. These issues are also widely ignored. Here is California, we have one of the 10 worst prisons in America. Speaking of Pelican Bay State Prison. This prison located in Crescent City, California, has 3500 inmates. Out of the 3500 prisoners, 1500 of them are in solitary. Of that 1500 in solitary, 500 of them have been in solitary in excess of a decade. Are we sure, building more

Mental health care and gun violence meet at a very bumpy crossroad. According to Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, “What we have seen – and a common theme among many of these mass shootings – is a theme of mental illness” (Flores). Adam Lanza, Seung Hui Cho, James Holmes, Elliot Rodgers, Aaron Alexis, and Dylann Roof: what do these six men have in common? They are all mass shooters that were diagnosed as mentally ill. All six of these men have failed to detect their illness and properly treat it. On April 16th, 2007, America was aghast by one of the massive school shootings to date. Seung Hui Cho, described as “angry and disturbed”, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others. As a little boy, Cho was bullied and diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder and major depression disorder. After the shooting, Virginian governor Tim Kaine gather together numerous officials and experts to investigate and determine what Cho’s objective was. The final report contained more than 30 pages about Cho’s mental history. The report has found that Cho’s mental health history should have prevented him from buying guns

There are so many mentally ill people in correctional facilities because most families do not know how to help their loves ones who suffer from a mental illness, so the call the police for help. Majority of the police officers do not know what to do or how to handle people with a mental illness disease. Police officers who are not trained to deal with the mentally ill often do not recognize that person is ill. Some police officers do not recognize if the individual should or not go to jail or a treatment center or medical facility. The impact of law enforcement and the judicial system dealing with people with a mental illness is to assist the inmates with the help they need. Also, the correctional facilities help inmates with mental illness

Although many of these shootings occur every year, there many steps that can be placed in order to prevent them from occurring in the future. Creating gun laws that provide better background checks on the buyer and family can help lessen the chances of a mentally ill person from obtaining a gun. Spreading awareness of a person with a mental illness-or generally spreading information of the many different mental illness- can also help prevent mass murders such as Sandy Hook from occurring. Finally, researching ways to prevent mental illnesses from forming can help prevent these violent crimes. If the blame is on the illness, why not find ways to cease them from affecting more people? Guns in the hands of the mentally ill are believed by many is the reason why mass shootings happen. These are some of the preventative measures that can be placed in order to stop these heinous crimes from

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. If additional funds were put into mental health care, no or low cost mental health care treatment and early detection could be offered to those who have a mental health condition; making sure those with a mental health condition can obtain proper treatment would lower the costs that Americans will pay in the long run, it would lower the incarceration rates and the number of families who are affected by mental illness would decrease.

The state is responsible, and the Part of the blame for this growing issue in our country. The result of the deinstitution movement in the 1960’s. This movement Majority of state of mental hospitals. This was because of the introduction of anti-psychics. Also people thought that that mentally ill patients should be helped and treated in their communities not inside of mental health hospital or insane asylum’s. Also Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance providers didn’t cover a patient stay at a mental health hospital. This was great for the people who received the help they need to function in our society. However is was bad for other who didn’t received adequate support and treatment in ended up in our into our corrections system. In 2009 to 2012 Illinois was one of ten states in the country that cut mental health funding by 32%. This was an attempts to fix the state’s fiscal crisis. Also in 2012 Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel order to close down six of twelve mental health care faculties. Only leave the city with six have remaining facility. This put’s a burden on the person that needs help because now they to get to a remaining faculty most of the time using public transportation we is a hassle. So this is when some people use drugs to self-mediate. Cook county sheriff Thomas dart is an advocate of helping the mentally ill inmate with receiving the help that they need. He says that the inmates should be treated like patients rather than inmates. And also while in cook county jail the inmate receive the help that they need. He says he problem is when a mentally ill person gets releases without their meds and treatment and support the usually end up back in jail and this becomes a repeated cycle. Ironically by Illinois cutting their mental health funding it only costed them more money. The state saw a 131 million dollar increase in spending for mental health. It’s estimated that it cost $150 a day to incarcerate a

Response to: What would you change about the mental health system after seeing “Skid Row”? (meaning resources for individuals with mental illness.) (King 2010)

It was determined Adam Lanza suffered from mental illnesses. According to an article published in the New York Times, Adam Lanza’s mental problems were untreated before the shooting(Cowan). People have blamed social media, Hollywood and video games has the culprits for gun violence. Even so, all of our actions result from signals sent from the brain. In other words, a signal or impulse coming from the brain is what causes a person to carry out a specific action such as firing a gun. Therefore, in every shooting that occurs mental health is a factor that must be accounted for. However, I do not think sufficient research has been conducted to explain why people reach a state of mind that results in a mass shooting. If people had a better understanding of what goes through a killer’s mind, it's possible a cure could be created. Also, it's important to take into account the lack of mental health services available. Many people suffering from mental illnesses don't seek treatment. If people were more aware of the signs and symptoms, it would be easier to encourage professional help.

So with all these kids dying wouldn't you agree that we need better mental health support, so we can prevent all these shootings? I believe that if we had good and strong mental health support services in the USA then tragic events like Columbine H.S. & Sandy Hook would probably never happen. That is why I am supporting for the USA to talk more about how to create more mental health support programs to help prevent gun violence events.

Their are around 500,000 mentally ill people that are put away in prisons and jails. In the documentary “The New Asylums”,Ohio's state prison system reveals the issues that are ongoing with mentally ill inmates. The major problem we have today is that no one is taking care of the people of these people.

While at St. Gertrude, Rose would often wander away and have sexual encounters with men. Staff noticed her condition worsening during her time at the school. Dr Bertram S Brown, the former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, documented that “a neurological disturbance or disease of some sort seemingly had overtaken her and it was becoming The United States incarcerates more people than any other developed nation. While the U.S. population has doubled since the 1950s, the population in state and federal prisons has swollen by over eight hundred percent during that time period. Several policies have resulted in the today’s mass incarnation rates, causing absurd financial strains to state and national budgets that deflect taxpayer money from much needed services, in order to pay for the housing of incarcerated individuals. Conversations about criminal justice reform have to include the issue of incarcerating the mentally ill if the United States is serious about reducing mass incarceration and recidivism.

According to LA Times, “at least 59% of the 185 public mass shootings that took place in the United States from 1900 through 2017 were carried out by people who had either been diagnosed with a mental disorder or demonstrated signs of serious mental illness prior to the attack,“ (Duwe). These numbers refer to public mass shootings, which include, but not only refer to schools. What this statistic means is 109 shootings at most could have been avoided by having schools identify students with mental illnesses and making schools provide effective support for these students. However, PBS claims, “Schools do not all screen students for mental health issues. Even if students are successfully identified, many areas lack the community-based mental health treatment options that would be needed to help

People have not always had the same understanding of what a mental illness is and what it entails. Even today, people are still learning about different mental illnesses, including what causes them, effective treatment, how they can be prevented, and what they actually to the individuals mind or thought process. In the past, mental illness has been treated with little, to no compassion because of the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of what was actually happening. The mentally ill may have been tortured, locked up for life, or even killed. These problems were not viewed as a medical issue, because people believed that these ill people had full control over their actions and that they just chose to act as they did. As time has passed and knowledge has been gained, there have been advances in how mental illness is looked at and treated. Even though the stigma placed on mental illness has improved, there are still quite a few people and cultures that look down on the recognition and treatment of mental health

Much of the criminal activity that takes place today is heavily related to the lack of treatment for mental illness. According to the US National Library of Medicine, approximately 60% of shooter in mass shootings that took place in the United States after 1970 displayed symptoms of acute paranoia, delusions, and depression before committing their inhumane acts. I am sure that most of you are aware of the Sandy Hook shooting that took place on December 12, 2012. The perpetrator, Adam Lanza took the innocent lives of 20 students as well as the lives of 6 staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Lanza had displayed key signs of mental illness as young as the age of three. His parents mildly attempted to find treatment, but they were not as serious about the topic as they should have been. This lack of seriousness is heavily related to the lack of awareness of the severity of these types of

While the topic of mental health awareness has recently been introduced, the roots of mental illnesses run deep into history. Mental illnesses, also called mental disorders, are a wide range of conditions that affect mood, thinking, and behavior. Many people with mental illnesses are now fighting to increase awareness of disorders like depression and anxiety, and some argue that the best way to educate about mental illnesses is to teach about it in school. By educating about mental illnesses in schools, activists are hoping to increase understanding about the topic and prevent teenagers who have mental illnesses from feeling alone.