I disagree that female offenders, and offenders in general, who are suffering from serious mental illnesses should be treated within the prison system and should instead be treated within the mental health system. No one, no matter what gender or mental illness — whether it be serious or non serious — should be treated within this system as the general environment is chaotic and unhealthy and even unhealthier for those who are suffering from general mental illness. Things such as artificial lighting and sharpness within the architecture can cause a decline within mental health as well, these things can cause mental health to decline even if the prison when they were at trial was mentally healthy. Even the labelling of someone as seriously mentally ill can have an adverse affect on their mental health, because someone has diagnosed them with something serious. This …show more content…
If these people are charged with a crime, and are non-violent, they should be sent for mental health treatment to serve their sentence instead of a prison system. As mentioned before, the artificial lightning, sharpness of architecture and the general environment of the prison system can do a lot more harm towards a person’s mental health. It can be argued that, theoretically if the mentally ill were to be sent to the mental health system instead of the prison system again it would turn into another asylum type of situation. However, within the last few decades the understanding of mental health and treatment for it has come a long way and that should be taken into consideration, even if there is still a stigmatization of mental illness within society the prison system is obviously not working for those who are mentally