Mentally Ill In Prison Analysis

What do 24% of jail inmates and 20% of homeless people in the United States have in common? According to Liz Szabo and Rick Jervis, the answer is severe mental illness (“Mental Illness: the Cost”; “Mental Disorders Strand Thousands”). The government has steadily been cutting the budget for mental health care for many years, closing down state mental hospitals and leaving community-based treatment programs starved for funds. As a result, many mentally ill people end up incarcerated or homeless. Most of these people are being punished for symptoms that they can not control. Rather than neglecting the mentally ill or locking them away in prisons and jails, the United States government should invest more money into programs that provide the mentally

A report by the Human Rights Watch showed that jail guards restrain mentally ill inmates and attack them with chemical weapons and stun guns (Horowitz). Pfeiffer states that correctional officers sometimes tape shut the mouths of mentally ill inmates or inject them with apoinorphine, a drug that “induce[s] vomiting for up to an hour”. She also discusses the frequent use of solitary confinement to subdue the mentally ill. According to her, studies show that the sensory and social deprivation that characterizes solitary confinement has a shocking effect on the mental health of inmates who were initially healthy. The effect that it has on mentally ill inmates is much worse, as evidenced by the self-mutilation that inmates often undergo while stuck in solitary cells. Solitary confinement units hold 3% of prisoners, but are the site of 29% of prison suicides. Mentally ill prisoners are more likely to be put in solitary confinement than their mentally healthy counterparts, and are sometimes left there for years at a

In “NYC Jails Neglected Suicide Precautions”, Pearson describes another study, which investigated the circumstances surrounding suicides in New York 's jails. He found that, in some cases, correctional officers ignored the suicide threats of mentally ill inmates. They saw the threats as just another attempt to escape punishment. When one inmate named Horsone Moore attempted to commit suicide, jail guards pepper-sprayed him, did not give him access to any medication or therapy, and did not watch him to make sure he didn 't hurt himself. Unsurprisingly, he made a second attempt, this time successful. In another case, an inmate named Gregory Giannotta threatened to commit suicide, but the psychiatrist 's order to put him on suicide watch was not logged until after his death. City and state documents cited “communication breakdowns between mental health staff and guards, sloppy paperwork, inadequate mental health treatment and improper distribution of medication” as having contributed to