Brianna Burns
ENG 1123, Period 3
Mrs. Meeks
15 October 2015
Summary #9
Glazer, Sarah. "Prisoners and Mental Illness." CQ Researcher (13 Mar. 2015): n.pag. 241-64. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.
Recently, the issue of treating mentally ill inmates while they serve time for the crimes they committed has become a very prevalent topic (Glazer n.pag.). Because budget cuts have caused many mental health institutions to shut down, court and law officials have been led to place these mentally ill offenders in jails that do not have the equipment and staff necessary to help treat them (Glazer n.pag.). Instead, the mentally ill offenders are simply placed in solitary confinement, causing their condition or illness to worsen over time (Glazer n.pag.). In many cases,
Craig Haney’s article Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and “Supermax” Confinement illustrates the complications faced in solitary confinement emphasizing the rise in mental health challenges imposed. Particular attention is paid to the escalation in the nature of mental health-related issues, including the negative psychological effects of imprisonment. Haney discusses these increasingly widespread and specialized units that bring forward the issues presented taking into account the notion of isolation and the association of the high percentage of prisoners suffering from mental illnesses. The article briefly assesses the recent case law concerning the difficulty of mentally ill prisoners, suggesting that the majority of broader psychological problems have been overlooked by the courts.
As the influx of mentally ill prisoners increase in federal penitentiaries, and prison’s staffing level remaining the same, inhumane treatment and dehumanizing practices of prisons are becoming more common and inescapable. In his article, “One of the Darkest Periods in the History of American Prisons,” Andrew Cohen elucidates how federal prisons are negatively developing over the years. By primary referencing to investigations in California and Florida, and allegations in Mississippi and Louisiana, Cohen is able demonstrate how ill-equipped, and reckless prisons have become in response to the needs of prisoners with mental illness. He even goes so far to compare today’s jails to “medieval places of unspeakable cruelty” ( ). In “One of the Darkest Periods in the History of American Prisons,” Cohen appeals heavily on pathos to the convince the audience of the fundamental corruption and carelessness that beholds today’s prisons towards inmates, especially mentally ill inmates.
The video named, “The New Asylums,” is about people in prison who have mental illness. Many people who have mental illness are held in prison throughout the America instead of hospitals or facilities, and they are more tend to be homeless before arrested and put in to jail. According to video, there are some mental health treatment meetings in prison. However, some psychologists think that people who have mental illness in prison need hospitalization. Moreover, the video claims that inmates who has severe mentally illness cant follow the rules.
Pete Earley brings a mixture of historical context, personal story, and investigative journalism together to create a powerful narrative. Earley's writing is earnest and intelligent and remains unbiased when writing about the mental health system. “Crazy” is a two-part creation. You have the personal narrative of the author’s experience with his son who suffers a mental breakdown interwoven with his reporting from a year observing how mentally ill prisoners are treated at the Miami-Dade County Jail. Earley followed a select number of cases through the courts tracing their progress in and out of custody, interviewing judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, patient advocates and those who suffer from mental illness, and the families and friends affected.
Offenders with these disorders could be dangerous to other or even themselves. The offenders with disorders like those stated before are close to being released back into society which must be frightening if they do not take their medicines. 2 Improve conditions Mental offenders are thrown in a correctional facilities due their crimes, but these offenders should be in a prison or a correctional facility where they do not get the help they need. When in a prison some of these offender could be and will be picked on like a schoolyard which might led to a suicide attempt. A report on mental offender in california have reported that over 30,000 prisoners confined in the state prison.
Another issue that the American prison systems were facing was their constant practice of locking away mentally ill individuals to very long prison sentences that only seriously worsened their conditions, and even made their chances of overcoming mental illness, nearly impossible. Even medications that were prescribed to these individuals made them suffer serious and sometimes even worse, side effects. Although some states banned the high rates of mentally ill individuals to prisons, this only meant they were more targeted and thrown in jail for petty offenses by police. Many prisons do not have the resources, nor the skills needed to adequately and appropriately care for the mentally ill, therefore many of them suffer and even die from this
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.
The mass incarceration of the mentally ill can be reduced by reverting to institutionalization Researchers and activists alike are concerned about the rate at which individuals with mental illness are incarcerated in the United States. Many consider that the increase in incarceration is a direct result of deinstitutionalization. In this essay, I will discuss how the solutions to the prevention of the incarceration of the mentally ill but ultimately lead to the common goal of improving the care of the mentally ill. This will be done by comparing and contrasting the key points of Knoll, Etter et al and Kincaid.
Untreated mental illness is dangerous and over time we have learned that locking people with a mental illness is not the solution but makes it worse. People with untreated mental illness face many consequences. “People with untreated psychiatric illnesses comprise 250,000 people, of the total homeless population” (mentalillnesspolicy.org). The quality of life for these individuals is extremely heart breaking, and many are victimized regularly.
Today there are more mentally ill people in prisons and jails in the United States than any hospital or psych facility in this country. Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois is the largest mental health institution in the country. When a mentally ill person gets arrested for a violent crime they stay three to four times longer than a regular violent offender. “One third of those incarnated in cook county jail suffers from psychological disorders.” According to a 2006 Justice Department study, more than half of prisoners in the United States Suffer from some sort of mental health problem.
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. Most mentally ill people live by themselves with no family or friends to take care of them and they are off their medications. The mentally ill come in to prison on non violent offenses such as disturbing the peace, trespassing, etc. After leaving mental hospitals they usually end up on the streets and become homeless.
The 2010 One Year Longitudinal Study of the Psychological Effects of Administrative Segregation conducted by a group of scientists concluded, “Although there were statistically significant findings, the results did not support the hypotheses of the study. We expected that there would be a worsening over time in reported behavior/sensations and that this change would be worse for inmates with mental illness in AS. However, we found that when significant changes over time occurred, they tended to be in the direction of improvement and this improvement tended to occur more frequently for inmates with mental illness,” (. O’Keefe, page 150). This study was conducted in Colorado. Although Colorado is known for having a few supermax prisons, their prisons are not as inforcing about contact with the outside during confinement as our very own Washington.
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.
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
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