“We have replaced the hospital bed with the jail cell, the homeless shelter and the coffin,” says Rep. Tim Murphy, R - Pa (CITE). This quote talks about how the mentally ill are not properly cared for. Even though mental illness is not a physical disease, more needs to be done to regulate it and bring awareness to the issue. There is not enough awareness and research with the types of mental illness, with what is done at schools with mentally ill children, and with mentally ill inmates. About 54 million Americans suffer from mental illness per year with there being over 200 classified forms of mental illness (Mental Health America). More than half of americans will develop a mental illness at some point in their life and we are not well aware of that (New York Times). There are many types of mental illnesses. The most well know type of mental illness is schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a type of psychotic disorder. Psychotic disorders are usually linked to another illness usually associated with the brain, for example a brain tumor. Major symptoms of most psychotic disorder are hallucinations and delusions. About 1% of the …show more content…
About sixty - four percent of jail inmates have some type of mental illness ("Mental Health."). Also 44 states and the District of Columbia have at least one jail that holds more mentally ill people than not (FIND CITATION). And yet there are many times when a mentally ill inmate is put on death row. For example, Cecil Clayton was executed on March 17, 2015 while he was 74 years old. He had dementia and lost 20% of his brain due to a sawmill accident and began to gain symptoms of schizophrenia and had violent impulses and extreme paranoia. He later checked himself into a mental hospital and the doctors from that institution said he should not be trialed but we can see what influence the doctor's opinion had (“Mental Illness and the Death