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Disabilities In Prisons

1005 Words5 Pages

The stigma and the detriments of being mentally disabled in the United States are rarely discussed amongst politicians. Mental health is seen as a taboo topic, which once opened all chaos shall be released. It is because of local, state, and federal politicians lack of courage to tackle this chaotic issue that the continued unfair treatment of mentally disable people is continued. This ignorance of politicians violates a principle that should never be violated, that a human’s dignity should never be ignored no matter the circumstance. Mental health is a can of worms that needs to be opened. Mental health is too often overlooked causing the members that fall under the umbrella of having a mental disability to be treated with injustice. One of the injustices being sent to prison instead of getting the help they deserve. Discrimination and mistreatment of Americans with disabilities in the prison system has a long lasting detrimental effect despite the efforts made by the American with Disabilities …show more content…

Changes need to be made to this system so the just and fair treatment of these people can be established. Closures of state funded psychiatric hospitals should be ceased. There is strong correlation between the closures of these hospitals to the intake rate of mentally disabled persons in prisons. The hospitals are established with one goal in mind: to rehabilitate and facilitate those in society who are mentally disabled. The criminal justice system was not established with this goal in mind. The criminal justice system has the goal to detain violent threats to society. In a prison setting the disabled person is not getting the proper medication they deserve to help ease their condition. If the inmates received and took their proper medication the prisons would not be dealing with high spending rates to maintain the environment of the

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691 Words | 3 Pages

This episode of PBS Frontline focuses on the growing problem of the enormous mentally ill criminal population in prisons and jails. The viewer is also provided with insight on the challenges and difficulties many of the released mentally ill face that often lead them back into incarceration. As the numbers of mentally ill offenders increase, much is debated regarding terms of release and the deinstitutionalization of the 1970’s. One of the main focuses of this episode was how many mentally ill criminals often find themselves re-incarcerated. Those that make parole or temporary supervision are usually better off being that they have someone to make sure their lives are organized.

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555 Words | 3 Pages

In a book that is both devastating and inspiring, Bryan Stevenson presents the cases of several of his clients who were either arrested for crimes they did not commit, or whose sentence did not match the crime. Stevenson forces you to consider the humanity of the accused; the life they lived before incarceration, the life they lived during incarceration. Among the cases presented, the ones that caught my acute attention were the ones of prisoners with mental and intellectual disabilities.

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463 Words | 2 Pages

In “Just Mercy” Bryan Stevenson talks about the layers to each incarcerated individual. He talks about the repeated connections between issues such as mental illness and harsh home environments to juvenile offenders and mass incarceration. Stevenson goes into depth about the different internal and external issues that many incarcerated have. “In fact, there are more than three times the number of seriously mentally ill individuals in jail or prison than in hospitals; in some states that number is ten times. And prison is a terrible place for someone with mentally illness or a neurological disorder that prison guards are not trained to understand.

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831 Words | 4 Pages

The book Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson brings awareness to the unfairness in the justice system and in our federal prisons. Incarceration of citizens suffering with mental health issues is a problem in our U.S prisons and the justice system but there are solutions to this problem like offering different programs to the mentally ill. In the book Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson gives a glimpse of the cruel, unjust sentencing practices problems we have with our justice system. Our prisons are flooded with inmates who suffer from a mental illness and with correction officers who are not properly trained to handle inmates who suffer from this hidden illness.

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670 Words | 3 Pages

Incarceration has become a revolving door for the mentally ill that arguably began with deinstitutionalization. The facility closes, the mentally ill individual is out on the street, individual acts in a perceivably deviant manner, get arrested, jailed, released and round and round they continue until they end up in a prison or on death row. The point of view of a 30-year law enforcement veteran is a welcome sight. Rather than continue to be part of a problem Kincaid has taken initiative to help create a program to divert the mentally ill from the system and get them help. In the first 18 months of the program, it was reported that 584 people were diverted from potential arrest.

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602 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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1000 Words | 4 Pages

Involuntary admission and medication have been administered to the mentally ill and disabled for centuries; this course began in the 1800s when the first insane asylum opened in Britain after the 1808 County Asylum Act. While many organizations are aimed at equal rights for all who are not a direct danger to themselves or others, there is still large injustice for the mentally handicapped when his/her rights are violated by being pushed into unnecessary hospitalization. Countless innocent, mentally ill people are impacted by having treatments they are involuntarily given; fortunately, organizations such as Mental Disability Rights International are attempting to make a difference by fighting against the treatment the mentally disabled receive

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525 Words | 3 Pages

Billions of dollars are spent making sure, severely mentally ill offenders can be treated. Billions of dollars have been spent making sure prison psychologists and psychiatrists have private offices to treat their inmate patients. Billions have been spent on individual cells for inmates near nurse’s station. Billions of dollars have been spent attempting to reduce overcrowding, and to improve health care in its prisons. What’s interesting about this entire ordeal, is the fact that my daughter is in the 11th grade, and every year she has been in high school she has had printed copies of chapters from the school textbooks.

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1708 Words | 7 Pages

Yet, there is a significant proportion of death row inmates are mentally ill and the research evidence found suggests that mental illness is often, in fact, an aggravating factor as far as capital sentencing bodies are concerned. The Supreme Court eventually came to the conclusion of this: “If it is cruel and unusual punishment to hold convicted criminals in unsafe conditions, it must be unconstitutional to confine the involuntarily committed - who may not be punished at all - in unsafe conditions” (French, 2005) There are rights that each individual has, and there needs to be guidelines to make sure each person is treated fairly, even if they do not deserve such

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828 Words | 4 Pages

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

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700 Words | 3 Pages

According to the World Health Organization, over 450 million people worldwide suffer from some kind of disability or neurological problem. These illnesses are diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, and dementia. Despite this crazy fact, people with these diseases do not receive fair treatment. The 14th amendment of the United States of America states that no state shall deny the equal protection and equal treatment of all people. Although this amendment and many other laws of protection are trying to protect the rights of the mentally ill, it is not working.

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1349 Words | 6 Pages

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

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475 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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984 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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332 Words | 2 Pages

Mentally ill prisoners in prison should be well taken care of. These offender need more care than those without a mental illness due to the illness they have they could hurting innocents civilian and guards or other prisoners like themselves or even themselves. Mentally ill offender need more medicines, Improve conditions, and the cost to keep them. Medicines Mentally ill offenders need as much more medicine than inmates without a mental illness,

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