Untreated Mental Illness In Prisons

Overcrowded prison has been a serious problem facing our correctional facilities for decades (Haney, 2006). By not having the adequate space and support to satisfy the detainees’ needs for rehabilitation will result in prisoners leaving the system unprepared for civilian life, guaranteeing that former law-breaker will fall back into the prison system increasing the overcrowding problem. Secondly, by squeezing such a large number of the detainees into a space intended to just hold a specific amount of people stretches the possibilities of prisoners lashing out on prison guards causing riots resulting in unsafe conditions for both inmates and prison staff. As agreed by Governor of the state of California Edmund G Brown Jr, “In the last year,

Generalist intervention model According to Cohen (1989), suggested that homeless population is extremely living in abject poverty. Homeless people have undergone through severe losses including loss of their homes, neighborhood, social roles, family, and friends. Also, homeless individual stands to be stigmatized and socially isolated. Homeless people have no control of their environment and do not know what they will eat or where they will sleep from day to day. Homeless individuals are at risk every day as a result of violence because they live in hostile environment.

Since there are only approximately 35,000 individuals with serious mental illness remaining in state mental hospitals, there are now 10 times more individuals with serious mental illness in jails and state prisons than there are in state mental hospitals (How Many Individuals with Serious Mental Illness are in Jails and Prisons?). The nation’s jails and prisons are used as dumping grounds for people with mental illnesses (How Many Individuals with Serious Mental Illness are in Jails and Prisons?). Many people who are sent to prison instead of being sent to psychiatric hospitals are more likely to die while in prison

Treatment is dependent on resource availability and demand. More than 50% of the prisoners who underwent pharmacotherapy for mental diseases prior to being incarcerated did not receive medication while in prison. The lack of treatment can have a severe consequences such as rehabilitation failure, recidivism, or even death (Reingle Gonzalez & Connell,

Infectious diseases are the likely causes for death in humans ranging from15 - 49 years of age. Accidental causes are higher in the 5-14 age group, and respiratory and digestive problems killed more infants under one years old than any other disease. The 50+ group suffered from diseases resulting from Neoplasm and circulatory systems. 7. Did Easter Island experience an epidemiological transition?

Imagine being placed into an old run down building with thousands of men or women. A mixture of murders, rapist, drug dealers and just plain criminals, not having enough space to do anything. Welcome to prison. Prisons nationwide face many issues such as overpopulation which can lead to violence and millions of dollars being plunged in these institutions. The overcrowding in prisons itself is a major problem.

Today, more than one out of every 100 Americans is behind bars, and the US has the largest prison population in the world. Prison overcrowding not only affects the economy but it causes issues within the prison as well. According to Angela Davis, “Prison overcrowding leads to several issues such as racial tensions, filth, or stress… which is an obstacle to rehabilitation work, therefore more inmates will come back into prison shortly after their release”.

Due to the judicial policies getting tougher on issues such as drug offenses and what they consider felonies, more and more people are going to prison. As of now, the United States has the highest rate of incarcerations. The inmates themselves are not only the only ones affected; 2.8 million children are left behind in the country after their parents are arrested (The Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children: Needs and Responsive Services). Children of incarcerated parents do not really get the attention they need, leaving them to face many problems alone. These children tend to develop mental illnesses, awkward social skills, and they function very different than a child with a normal home setting.

Chronic homelessness is the term given to people that experience long haul or rehashed episodes of homelessness. The incessantly destitute are regularly general society face of the issue, be that as it may, they make up just 15% of the whole destitute populace on a given day. About 48,000 or 8.5% of every single person are veterans. On a given night, about 20% of the destitute populace had genuine psychological maladjustment or conditions identified with perpetual substance

Behind closed doors, many patients receive abuse or neglect that only worsens their state. In fact, the NCEPOD clinical coordinator states that over half of the patients admitted into mental institutions receive “poor physical and mental healthcare” (Source C) that disrupts their road to recovery. Although the private nature of mental hospitals aids in the help of the ill, it allows the underpaid staff to do as they please. Another side to this rebuttal is the topic of gun control and how easy someone with a mental illness can obtain one. This controversial subject has been on the minds of the American people since after the passage of the second amendment that allowed us the right to own guns.

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,

Thousands of people would not benefit from outpatient treatment and often found themselves under-employed, homeless, victims of crime, in nursing homes, in residential treatment homes, in a correctional facility, and more likely to suffer from substance abuse disorders. These compounding factors are the foundation of the phenomenon called “Criminalization of the Mental Ill.” People with a serious mental illness are more likely to be arrested, incarcerated, and sentenced to more time than those not suffering from a mental illness. Contrary to stereotypes, people with a serious mental illness are more likely to be a victim of a crime. Even if the concept of diverting potential clients to alternative community programs was created at the inception of deinstitutionalization, it was not implemented into the criminal justice system until 1988 when the first Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) was developed. The Memphis Police Department developed the program after one of its officers shot and killed a man who suffered from a mental illness.

The Untied States has the highest rated of adult incarceration about 2.2 million in jail or in prison. About half of those inmates are mentally ill; the cause of this problem may me a result of deinstitutionalization of the state 's mental health system. In other words, the state has put the mentally ill humans in a correctional facility as they were in an asylum and the prisons holds more mentally ill humans than a state hospital nationwide. These offenders are mistreated inside of jails and prison, believes it or not it has been proven. Most of these individual have different illness, which consist of psychotic illness, depression, personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, organic disorders and there’s many more illnesses and disorders.

In 2012, almost seven thousand inmates were serving life sentences for crimes they committed as juveniles (603). Sentencing and correctional facilities were not insusceptible to the confusion of the times, but also faced additional inconvenience. Sentencing research uncovered major discretion and something unlike anything they have ever seen before, resulting in negative punishments for minorities. The conditions in prisons led to fights and the death/injury of inmates and staff. Crime rates rising, social disobedience, and drug use increasing has alarmed many people (Mackenzie 2013 4).

The prison population is overwhelmingly male and disproportionately minority. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 25% of state prisoners are white, 38% are black and 21% are Hispanic, revealing a degree of disproportion when compared to the general population where 62% are white, 13% are black and 17% are Hispanic. Racial disparity with regards to imprisonment has been a feature of the prison system from decades yet this disparity has increased over time. African Americans today are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate that is 5.1 times the imprisonment of whites. African Americans comprise 31% of individuals arrested for drug violations.