The United States desperately needs a stable financial system. In order to boost the country’s available revenue, the government instates deinstitutionalization across the nation. By shutting down mental hospitals, the idea is that the saved money can go towards worthier causes. However, the amount of money spent increases despite all efforts, as the government remains in the patients’ lives through aid and other facilities. Since the need for financial stability is crucial, mental hospitals should not be closed, thus cutting back on surplus spending exponentially. Furthermore, it is morally wrong to close mental hospitals in order to raise money under the guise of granting the mentally ill their full independence (Pollack par. 14). While the …show more content…
By removing the government from the equation entirely, it is thought that a patient is given more freedom and independence. In theory, the idea sounds appealing; the patient would integrate into society and learn to lead a stable, healthy life. On the other hand, medical, financial, and emotional guidance is needed in order for them to purely survive. With no government involvement, the mentally ill greatly suffer. Thus, the idea of independence is overwhelmed by the need for the United States to care for its citizens. A mental hospital, which is equipped with a full staff and proper medication, supersedes neglect in disguise of freedom. For a patient’s successful transition into society, full compensation and therapy services must be provided. In recent cases of deinstitutionalization, no such measures have been taken, and the mentally ill endure the consequences. In a mental hospital, they are on a strict schedule and thrive in a routine environment. Conversely, in society, they are away from their regimented agenda and assistance. With no supervision, a patient’s health declines, and they eventually lose the will to even get out of bed. If the mentally ill are to succeed outside the mental hospital, they must not be thrust into society and instantly forgotten. The United States must relent the idea that non-restriction is positive for patients and not endanger them through
Pollack, Harold. "What Happened to U.S. Mental Health Care after Deinstitutionalization." Washingtonpost.com. N.p., 12 June 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Corrigan, Watson and Ottati (2003) argue this strong stigma has legitimized a historically inequitable system of treatment for those with mental illness. As far back as the Middle Ages, the mentally ill were sent to prisons because they were perceived as dangerous. Beginning in the 19th century, they were transitioned to asylums and hospitals due to the widely held belief that they were not only dangerous, but also i...
As a result of the lack of regulation in state mental institutions, most patients were not just abused and harassed, but also did not experience the treatment they came to these places for. While the maltreatment of patients did end with the downsizing and closing of these institutions in the 1970’s, the mental health care system in America merely shifted from patients being locked up in mental institutions to patients being locked up in actual prisons. The funds that were supposed to be saved from closing these mental institutions was never really pumped back into treating the mentally ill community. As a result, many mentally ill people were rushed out of mental institutions and exposed back into the real world with no help where they ended up either homeless, dead, or in trouble with the law. Judges even today are still forced to sentence those in the latter category to prison since there are few better options for mentally ill individuals to receive the treatment they need. The fact that America, even today, has not found a proper answer to treat the mentally ill really speaks about the flaws in our
In the book “The Mad Among Us-A History of the Care of American’s Mentally Ill,” the author Gerald Grob, tells a very detailed accounting of how our mental health system in the United States has struggled to understand and treat the mentally ill population. It covers the many different approaches that leaders in the field of mental health at the time used but reading it was like trying to read a food label. It is regurgitated in a manner that while all of the facts are there, it lacks any sense humanity. While this may be more of a comment on the author or the style of the author, it also is telling of the method in which much of the policy and practice has come to be. It is hard to put together without some sense of a story to support the action.
Throughout the Great Depression the mentally disabled were treated harshly and were almost constantly being harassed by society. The mentally ill were treated in this cruel manner because they were seen as the cause of some of society’s problems of that day in age. Also, society viewed them as less capable of human being. A physician of that time by the name of Alexis Carrel stated, “The mentally ill should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanistic institutions supplied with the proper gases” (Freeman; “Treatment of the…”). Not only did Alexis Carrel feel this way, but so did many other people of the United States way
According to Szasz (2005), “In principle, the mental patient is considered competent (until proven [otherwise]). In practice, the client is regularly treated as if he were incompetent and the psychiatrist who asserts that he needs treatment is treated as if he were the patient’s guardian” (p.78). During the 1940’s patients who were mentally ill were considered “legally incompetent” when committed into a mental health facility. Relatives of the patients could release them by providing care in their homes for the client. Unfortunately, Szasz (2005) claims, that “the treatment of mental diseases is no more successful today than it was in the past” (p.78).
Parker, Laura. "The Right to Be Mentally Ill: Families Lobby to Force Care." USA TODAY. Feb. 12 2001: 1A+. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.
Until the middle of the last century, public mental health in the United States had been the responsibility, for the most part, of individual states, who chose to deal with their most profoundly mentally-ill by housing them safely and with almost total asylum in large state mental hospitals. Free of the stresses we all face in our lives, the mentally-ill faced much better prospects for peaceful lives and even recovery than they would in their conditions in ordinary society. In the hospitals, doctors were always accessible for help, patients were assured food and care, and they could be monitored to insure they never became a danger to themselves or others. Our nation’s state hospital system was a stable, efficient way to help improve the lives of our mentally disabled.
Wouldn’t it be completely irrational to sentence every mentally ill individual to jail purely because they suffered from a mental illness? Often, mentally ill people behave in an eccentric manner and allure the attention of police officers who do not differentiate the mentally ill from mentally stable people and immediately charge them with misdemeanors. There are approximately 300,000 inmates, with the number increasing every year, which suffer from a mental illness and do not receive proper treatment. Jails are not adequately equipped to care for mentally ill inmates, which can lead to an escalation of an inmate’s illness. Society has failed to provide enough social resources for citizens suffering from psychiatric illnesses in its community, transferring mentally unstable individuals between mental institutions and jails, when in fact adequate aid such as providing proper medication, rehabilitation opportunities, and more psychiatric hospitals in communities is a necessity to reconstitute these individuals.
If the United States had unlimited funds, the appropriate response to such a high number of mentally ill Americans should naturally be to provide universal coverage that doesn’t discriminate between healthcare and mental healthcare. The United States doesn’t have unlimited funds to provide universal healthcare at this point, but the country does have the ability to stop coverage discrimination. A quarter of the 15.7 million Americans who received mental health care listed themselves as the main payer for the services, according to one survey that looked at those services from 2005 to 2009. 3 Separate research from the same agency found 45 percent of those not receiving mental health care listing cost as a barrier.3 President Obama and the advisors who helped construct The Affordable Care Act recognized the problem that confronts the mentally ill. Mental healthcare had to be more affordable and different measures had to be taken to help patients recover. Although The Affordable Care Act doesn’t provide mentally ill patients will universal coverage, the act has made substantial changes to the options available to them.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Those with mental illness would live in the community with an array of services and be able to be free from the constraints of confinement. In the early 1960’s the United States began an initiative to reduce and close publicly-operated mental hospitals. This became known as deinstitutionalization. The goal of deinstitutionalization was to allow people suffering from mental illness to live more independently in the community with treatments provided through community health programs. Unfortunately, the federal government did not provide sufficient ongoing funding for the programs to meet the growing demand. States reduced their budgets for mental hospitals but failed to increase funding for on-going community-based mental health programs. As a result of deinstitutionalization hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people were released into the community without the proper resources they needed for their treatment. (Harcourt,
Continuing budget cuts on mental health care create negative and detrimental impacts on society due to increased improper care for mentally ill, public violence, and overcrowding in jails and emergency rooms. Origins, of mental health as people know it today, began in 1908. The movement initiated was known as “mental hygiene”, which was defined as referring to all things preserving mental health, including maintaining harmonious relation with others, and to participate in constructive changes in one’s social and physical environment (Bertolote 1). As a result of the current spending cuts approaching mental health care, proper treatment has declined drastically. The expanse of improper care to mentally ill peoples has elevated harmful threats of heightened public violence to society.
“Doing projects really gives people self-confidence. Nothing is better than taking the pie out of the oven. What it does for you personally, and for your family 's idea of you, is something you can 't buy." - Martha Stewart. Rehabilitated prisoners programs, for example, in the prisons are one of the most important programs in prison to address the causes of criminality and restore criminal’s self-confidence. Therefore, many governments are still taking advantage of their prisoners while they are in prison. However, some people believe that prison programs ' can improve and develop the criminals to be more professionals in their crimes. In addition, rehabilitated programs help inmates in the character building, ethical behavior, and develop
The Pros and Cons of Drug Legalization Should drugs be legalized? Drugs are resources that are capable of affecting the American economy in many ways—both positively and negatively. Drugs often have a bad name, even though they help us everyday in medical cases. and the drugs with the worst reputations are not the most abused drugs. One may benefit from the legalization of drugs in many ways, while others would suffer greatly.