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Mentally Ill In Prison Essay

716 Words3 Pages

Mentally ill individuals are present in jails and prisons at disproportionate rates. The problem will not be significantly improved by programs alone. To fix the problem: the reach of standard mental health needs to be expanded, the mentally ill need to be diverted early in the criminal justice process. Criminal justice professionals need to have better training in dealing with and recognizing mental illness, data needs to be used more effectively, and aftercare programs for the mentally ill need to be in place for them when they are released from jail or prison. It is for these reasons that there is a disconnect between legal concepts of insanity and psychological concepts of mental illness. Ethical concerns are raised when arresting and prosecuting the mentally ill because the issue of culpability is raised. The mentally ill may not be fit to stand trial or even be aware of what they are doing. However, the incidents of their criminal behavior must be dealt with. If mentally ill is defined as experiencing symptoms or receiving aid for mental health, then that is approximately 56% of state prisons and 64 of jail inmates. Even if adjusted to serious mental illness like: psychotic, mania, severe and depression, this is still about 10% - 20% of jail and 25% prison inmates. It is quite come for the …show more content…

It may be substantial if organizational changes in how police departments and mental health agencies cooperate in providing services in a timely manner. Some evidence suggest the mental health courts have a noticeable impact on the recidivism time for the mentally ill. It would be useful for correctional officers to receive more training because especially when it comes to jails and prisons, the mentally ill do not respond to orders the same

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Police are routinely cast into conditions in which they have to recognize and quickly adapt to situations involving mentally ill suspects. This may be the reason police officers are known as “streetcorner psychiatrists, de facto mental health service providers, or psychiatrist in blue.” Some studies report that ten percent of all police contacts are with people with a serious mental illness. Other studies report that people with a serious mental illness represent six to eight percent of all state prisoners, while other data claims that over half of state prisoners have a serious mental illness. Further, people with a serious mental illness will spend more time incarcerated than people who do not have a serious mental illness.

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A major issue is with our justice system is either ignoring or don’t recognize convicts with mental health issues, which leads to lengthier convictions and higher rates of recidivism. Ignoring or not recognizing the convict’s mental health issues just gets them incarcerated for a longer time and they never receive the right treatment to get better. Due to our country’s prison not having the right or proper treatment for the mentally ill will make it harder for them to adjust when the release back into society. One of the main reasons why our prisons don’t have the correct treatment centers for the mentally ill is because it just not affordable to have non-prison facilities on the prison campus. One solution that has been tried is to create a “supermax” prison, which is facility that known for segregation, lockdown, or solitary confinement.

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This is important information to understand and be aware, due to the increased number of mentally ill jailed, in life imprisonment, or on death row. Understanding the history of the problem and how it came to be can help the system gain knowledge on how to find a solution. The authors citing statistical information helped reinforce their argument however some information was observational. Observational information is good data however it cannot be used to determine causation. More information on the mental patient’s rights movement would have helped to understand a different aspect of the argument but overall an insightful

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The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004: Problems and Prospects by Christine M. Litschgea and Michael G. Vaughn, is a research article whose focus is three-fold. First, the researchers review the literature available on the elements that have contributed to the increasing levels of incarcerated persons with severe mental illness (SMI). Secondly, they analyze the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (MIOTCRA), and assess if this law can reduce problems associated with incarcerated persons with SMI.

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Furthermore, the failure to address mental health needs within the prison system exacerbates these issues. The Equal Justice Initiative reveals that more than half of all Americans in prison or jail have a mental illness. Prison officials often fail to provide correct treatment, resorting to physical force and solitary confinement, which can worsen mental health problems. The Equal Justice Initiative reveals, “More than half of all Americans in prison or jail have a mental illness. Prison officials often fail to provide appropriate treatment for people whose behavior is difficult to manage, instead resorting to physical force and solitary confinement, which can aggravate mental health problems.”

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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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