Analysis Of Why We Shouldn T Stigmatize Mentally Ill Prisoners

This is a rhetorical essay from Time Magazine on Why We Shouldn’t Stigmatize Mentally Ill Prisoners. Elizabeth Ford, the author of the article, emphasizes on the effects stigmatizing mentally ill prisoners take. The article was published May 17, 2017, and focuses more particularly on recalling experiences from the Vernon B. Bain Correctional Center at Riker’s Island in the Bronx, New York.
In her article, Elizabeth Ford first introduces her article by describing the sounds of her surroundings as well as the signs those sounds illustrate when entering the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center. Throughout her article she continues to stress how confinement of the mentally ill takes its toll on offenders due to the increasing factors of assault,

The article begins introducing Dr. Ford, who is the Chief of Psychiatry for Correctional Health Services for New York City’s Health and Hospitals; she is also the author of “Sometimes Amazing Things Happen: Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward.” She then opens up her initial paragraph stating “I can hear the shouting before I’ve even cleared the gate. Disorganized obscenities and threats mix with stern warnings. There’s fear in everyone’s voice.” This relates to ethos because Ford is explaining what she knows about mental illness in regards of being an incarcerated individual and creating the connection between author and reader to help provide understanding the issue being currently discussed at hand. She also uses strong appeal to pathos within the same paragraph stating “A patient with mental illness, scared and yelling, is resisting the orders of the correction officers to leave his cell. The exchanges become more heated and tense. The risk of violence rises. “Hey,” I say, looking at the patient through the cell door and placing my palm on the scratched Plexiglas window. He keeps yelling and pacing. I keep quiet. Within

It is known that the United States holds the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. The United States consists of about 5 percent of the world’s population while it holds around 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. 1 out of every 100 adults is incarcerated in the United States. 1 out of every 35 citizens are under some sort of correctional supervision. I study a lot of information regarding prisons as a criminal justice major, and to my knowledge, over 7.1 million Americans are incarcerated, on probation, or on parole. There is a rough estimate of around 60 percent of incarcerated individuals that are diagnosed with mental illnesses. This is due to what could be called the criminalization of the mentally ill. Mass incarceration has been America’s response to poverty and mental illness. An estimated 40 percent of the mentally ill Americans end up in the criminal justice system. Around 2 million people with mental illness go to jail every year, that’s ten times more people in jail than in state funding psychiatric treatment. This makes jails/prisons the nation’s largest provider of mental healthcare. Many of the mentally ill Americans do not receive the proper care that they need or are receiving no treatment at all for diagnosed mental health and substance abuse