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Conceptual issues categorisation of mental illness
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In the prison system most of the prisoners are labeled as either “mad” or bad”. The implication here is that “mad” implies that the prisoner is mentally ill and “bad” implies that they are purposely acting out. The main difference is if the person has the ability to choose to act a specific way they are “bad” or if they cannot control their actions then they are “mad”. In this paper I will describe how the prison workers distinguish between the prisoners as “mad” or “bad” as well as discuss how the ideas and social practices inform the prison guards’ judgment. Then I will discuss how being labeled as “mad” affects the prisoners and why some of them strive to be labeled as “mad”.
The prison workers are the ones who decided if a prisoner is “mad” or “bad”. This starts when they first come into the prison. They are brought in asked a few specific questions to decide if they will need mental help. If these workers decided that the prisoner is not mentally ill they get pushed along. “Given the limited capacity of the prison to provide help, the workers "…have no choice but to look… for the ‘seriously crazy… If they can talk, even if they are squirrely, they are moved on” (Rhodes, 2004, 102).
The ideas and social practices of the prison guards effect how they decide if the prisoners are “mad” or “bad”. Then the prison guards will ask themselves if the odd behavior of the prisoner is a sign of underlining disturbances or if they are willingly acting that way to resists their environment (Rhodes, 2004). A lot of the behavior in the control unit could be considered odd but the underlining issues and intentions are what they prison guard has to try to understand. The prison workers try to distinguish the “mad” and the “bad”...
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...ntal health jacket when they see that its terms create the possibility for this change in how they are treated and, for some, in how they feel” (Rhodes, 2004, 121).
The way the prison system is set up it does not allow the prisons to have any self-respect. They have no reason to want to get better and they continue to have a cycle of the prisoners treating the guards poorly and the guards treating the prisoners badly. Fortunately one prison is changing this terrible cycle so that the prisoners do not have to bee labeled as “mad” or “bad”.
Works Cited
Luhrmann, T. (2007). Social Defeat and The Culture of Chronicity: or, Why Schizophrenia Does So Well Over There and So Badly Here. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 135-172.
Rhodes, L. (2004). Total Confinement: Madness and Reason in the Maximum Security Prison. Berkeley: University of California Press.
I feel that this book gives a rough, inspiring and passionate warning that the rush to imprison offenders hurts the guards as well as the guarded. Conover reminds us that when we treat prisoners like the garbage of society, we are bound to treat prison staff as garbage men -- best out of sight, their own dirt surpassed only by the dirt they handle. Conover says in one part of his book, “Eventually admitting that being in a position of power and danger brings out a side of myself I don’t like.” I feel both prisoners and officers deserve better.
This paper is about the book 'Behind a Convict's Eyes' by K.C. Cerceral. This book was written by a young man who enters prison on a life sentence and describes the world around him. Life in prison is a subculture of its own, this subculture has its own society, language and cast system. The book describes incidents that have happen in prison to inmates. With this paper I will attempt to explain the way of life in a prison from an inmate's view.
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Being a prisoner has more restrictions than one may believe. Prisoners are told when they should participate in daily activities and what they are allowed to say or do on a daily basis. This is not a life anyone is determined to experience during any period of time. However, all though for most prison life is just a depiction in a movie or on television, it is a reality for many. Their crimes and behaviors brought them into a world of being stripped of their freedom. Those who oversee the prisoners must control order within the brick walls. An article discussing the duties of a prison officer, defines it as one who “...has responsibility for the security, supervision, training and rehabilitation of people committed to prison by the courts”
Having the study formulated after a prison environment presents a disturbing view on the effects it has on the individuals living in these conditions. As the study demonstrated both groups take on an alternate persona based on the roles assigned to them and the level of authority given to each. Today the same effect can be seen outside the prison environment, businesses experience this phenomenon as well. Managers are figures of authority within company and based on the type of management they exude, subordinates experience at different points some level of dominance over them. The results of the study are extremely valuable especially for the corrections industry, in recent years’ prisons have employed medical professionals that help inmates with psychological traumas and are able to utilize different outlets such as classes and work related activities within the corrections facility as a means to eliminate the negative effects on its
There are two different kinds of influences on prison misconduct, there is the combined characteristics of the inmates themselves, and the combined characteristics of the staff in control of them (Camp, Gaes, Langan, Saylor (2003). Prison misconduct has been classified into significant fields related to drug use, violence, property offenses, prison accountability and escapes, security-related offenses, security offenses interfering with daily operations, along with a residual category (Camp, Gaes, Langan, Saylor (2003). Misconduct spoils the effective procedure of the correctional institution, detracting from its capability to present the intentional services to the superior society (Goetting & Howsen (1986).
The “pains of imprisonment” can be divided into five main conditions that attack the inmate’s personality and his feeling of self-worth. The deprivations are as follows: The deprivation of liberty, of goods and services, of heterosexual relationships, autonomy and of security.
Throughout the history of the United States and including the western world. Corrections have served the country by convicting and sentencing offenders depending on the seriousness of the crime. Along with that today, offenders are either placed in probation, incarcerated or taken to community-based corrections. Even though, corrections have always tried to find ways to deter crime by correcting criminals, the poor economy in our country has been the cause for struggles in the correctional system. Some of the causes of economic issues are the cut of budget, over crowing, lack of programs for people with mental illnesses, and lack of innovation.
HRW: Ill Equipped: U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illness: VII. DIFFICULTIES MENTALLY ILL PRISONERS FACE COPING IN PRISON. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1003/7.htm
The jobs of correctional officer are some times overlooked. Correctional officers are playing a huge role in society because they need to perform important tasks. A correctional officer’s job is not easy and can become very stressful at times. Correctional officers are required to enforce and keep order, supervise inmates, help counsel offenders, search inmate cells for contraband, and also report on inmate actions. Correctional officers need to contain power over the prisoners in order to enforce the rules of the prison, or else the prison will not function correctly. In the book, Conover says, “The essential relationship inside a prison is the one between a guard and an inmate…the guard, it is thought, wields all the power, but in truth the inmate has power too” (Conover, p. 207). In the book, the importance of power the prisoner’s hold can be seen through the sudden increase of prisoners, the Stanford Prison Experiment and through the contraband they make.
Longitudinal research has been conducted comparing the rate of violence in male and female prisons. It is important to do research on this topic because it does not only lead to the conclusion of where is violence prevalent, but focuses on other aspects as well. It focuses on the psychological, social, and sexual side of the inmate. This topic does not only focus on who has the highest rates of violence, but why does that sex have a higher rate. This topic looks deeper at the differences between male and female inmates and what causes them to have high rates of violence. Most people would say that male prisons have a higher rate of violence due to biological reasons. People tend to think that males are more aggressive therefore violence is prevalent in male prisons, yet there is a lot more to this idea.
In today's society, we are facing many changes. Our own family, neighbors, and countrymen are afraid of many dangers which influence their lives. Although many people have fear which resonates in their consciousness and unconsciousness, the United States has a comparatively low crime rate. Despite this low crime rate, America incarcerates it's citizens five times the rate of Canada and seven times that of most European democracies.(Slambrouck, Paul. 24) Our society needs to be changed. We cannot blame the individuals involved in wrongdoing but we can blame our society who raised these criminals. Of course someone who kills another human being needs to be put away in some form; but we need to make changes. We need to help as many maladjusted people as we can. There are some steps which really seem to work. There are many prison inmates who come from broken homes and have low self-esteem. What needs to be done to help these insecure people, who are at war with themselves and society, is to rehabilitate them. The problem is the prison officials do not try to teach the prisoners how to learn from their mistakes.(McGovern, Celeste. 42) What actually happens is that criminals tend to be better thefts, and have the ability to out smart the police. Our politicians need to stress how important vocational, educational, drug-treatment, and religious programs are, in order to improve the attitude and demeanor of these convicted felons. This is the only way to keep ex-con's from jail.(DeLuca, H.R. 38) Another problem with America's prison system is overcrowding. There is a huge amount of young conscienceless offenders who are entering today's prisons. Imagine trying to compact eight gallons of water in a five gallon con...
Subjects became so entranced in these roles that the guards started to behave as if they really were the guards of a true prison. Zimbardo had told them to think of themselves in this way and it led to the guards mentally abusing the prisoners with their cruel and degrading ro...
This book gave me more insight to the inmate’s mentality correlating to the prison structure. While taking
The norms of the prison are held up by sanctions, both by the prisoners and by the violence of the guards. Some examples of these sanctions are the degradation ceremonies established new inmates as inferior, violence by the guards enforcing their power over the prisoners, prisoners act in such a way that these techniques fail, and being sent to solitary confinement. All of these enforce their isolation and works to break them as a human being, reminding them their role as a prisoner and their lack of power. By doing this, one would want to abide by the rules to veer away from any severe