Crazy In America Summary

675 Words2 Pages

The book, Crazy In America by Mary Beth Pfeiffer, shows how people who suffer from bipolar disorder, clinical depression, schizophrenia, and other serious psychological illnesses are constantly imprisoned because alternate care is not accessible. This surprised me because I did not realize that people with psychological illnesses are put in prison when alternate care is not available. Once these people who suffer from psychological illnesses are put behind bars, they are often punished over and over again for behavior that is psychotic, not criminal. There are many problems that can occur with mental illness, substance addiction, and other psychological disorders that are ignored and often misinterpreted within the criminal justice system, …show more content…

The best thing about this book is that it is not from a doctors point of view, it is a point of view of the patients themselves and/or families. Pfeiffer included pictures of each person which only made me feel more sorry for each of them. Each six of the case studies outcomes brought me to the conclusion that this type of criminalization of the mentally ill has left me helpless. For example, one of the case studies talked about a schizophrenic, Shayne, who was institutionalized at age 14 for a drug addiction and mental illness. She ended up serving time in jail, but ended up blinding herself by plucking her eyes out. After plucking her eyes out, she then removed four of her teeth by trying to bite off her finger. After that, she then tried to bite a hole into her cheek. She is still alive, but the fact that she was under care of the state and this still happened is not acceptable. Also, let me remind you that all of these incidents happened while Shayne was isolated. It is very clear that isolation is not a type of treatment, it is harmful. Another example is Luke, who suffered from bipolar disorder. He was often in and out of mental hospitals. He ended up serving time in prison after his behavior increased into drug and violence abuse. Luke was put on suicide watch, yet he ended up committing suicide

Kings Park State Hospital Summary
1457 Words | 3 Pages
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
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Crazy In America Summary
1262 Words | 3 Pages
In the book Crazy in America by Mary Beth Pfeiffer, she illustrated examples of what people with mental illness endure every day in their encounters with the criminal justice system. Shayne Eggen, Peter Nadir, Alan Houseman and Joseph Maldonado are amongst those thousands or more people who are view as suspected when in reality they are psychotic who should be receiving medical assistance instead, of been thrown into prison. Their stories also show how our society has failed to provide some of its most vulnerable citizens and has allowed them to be treated as a criminals. All of these people shared a common similarity which is their experience they went through due to their illness.
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Ashley Smith Case Summary
654 Words | 2 Pages
Ashley’s death could have easily been prevented if she was given proper treatment and help both outside and inside the prison system. Ashley was part of a marginalized group of mentally ill individuals that are easy targets for criminalization in our society. Mental illness impacts all aspects of an individuals life, and instead of seeing it as an illness society sees it as a problem than needs to be dealt with so we don't have to see it. Once mentally ill people become marginalized members of society and once they make one “mistake” we feel the need to place them in the harshest institution so they can be fixed, which is the prison system. Criminalizing marginalized groups is so easy for members of our society, because we no longer see them as on of “us” we see them as people that need to be fixed. Furthermore, the prison system is extremely harmful to individuals with mental illness, the setup and setting of prisons can have detrimental affects to an individuals already ill mental state. This case showed how the criminalization of a mentally ill individual and the lack of treatment within the prison system lead to horrible outcomes, as a society we should stop criminalizing marginalized groups as an easy fix to societal problems and instead we should actively help solve the
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Crazy Chapter Summary
731 Words | 2 Pages
In the Earley book, the author started to talk about the history of mental illness in prison. The mentally ill people were commonly kept in local jails, where they were treated worse than animals. State mental hospitals were typically overcrowded and underfunded. Doctors had very little oversight and often abused their authority. Dangerous experimental treatments were often tested on inmates.
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The Mad Among Us By Gerald Grob
945 Words | 2 Pages
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.
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Mental Illnesses In The 1800's
269 Words | 1 Pages
In the 1800’s people with mental illnesses were frowned upon and weren't treated like human beings. Mental illnesses were claimed to be “demonic possessions” people with mental illnesses were thrown into jail cells, chained to their beds,used for entertainment and even killed. Some were even slaves, they were starved and forced to work in cold or extremely hot weather with chains on their feet. Until 1851, the first state mental hospital was built and there was only one physician on staff responsible for the medical, moral and physical treatment of each inmate. Who had said "Violent hands shall never be laid on a patient, under any provocation.
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Social Values In The Bridgewater State Hospital
853 Words | 2 Pages
As time goes on, the law has put more emphasis on facility just like Bridgewater State Hospital in which many of the actions of the facility workers can face legal consequences such as facing prison time, fines, lawsuits, and etc. Society has a better understanding of why certain people act the way that they do and being more knowledgeable about psychology and mental diseases allows us to have a different approach when dealing with these topics or these individuals. In today’s era, there are many normal individuals who are willing to stand up for those who do not have a voice of their own. I believe that this change in one’s ability to stand up for another individual or group of individuals is what brought about change to the medical environment of those who are mentally
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The Stigma Against The Wild Beast: Asylums And Wild Beast
1379 Words | 3 Pages
Those that could not function with in society because of their disordered behavior and symptoms associated with their disorder commonly ended up on the street, where these behaviors became a public nuisance. Many of these individuals also use illegal drugs in order to cope with some of their symptoms. As the criminal justice system cracked down on the use of illegal drugs, those with mental illness became a target. With no other recourse, jails and prison became the new institution. Many of these individuals are arrested for petty offenses such as urinating in public, that leads to minimal punishment and even fewer resources (Lurigio and Harris, 2007). Even when an individual with a mental illness commits a more severe crime, such as a felony, resources are still lacking for their treatment. The criminal justice system is not equipped to take care of those with mental disorders. Inmates are often medicated by forces without addressing other underlying issues (Lurigio and Harris,
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Analysis Of Mass Shootings And A Mental-Health Disgrace
1113 Words | 3 Pages
In his Wall Street Journal article, “Mass Shootings and a Mental-Health Disgrace,” Tim Murphy, a United States representative from Pennsylvania and a psychologist in the Navy Reserve Medical Service Corps, analyzes the correlation between mentally ill individuals and the mass shootings that have been making headlines recently. Murphy has come up with the idea of a new bill: the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. He says this bill will help those individuals who have mental disabilities get the help that they need before their disabilities get any worse. In today’s world, people with a mental illness get sent to prison if they do something wrong instead of getting sent to a psychiatric hospital where they belong. I think this
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The Negative Effects Of Solitary Prisonation In Prisons
1427 Words | 3 Pages
Thousands of people statewide are in prisons, all for different reasons. However, the amount of mental illness within prisons seems to go unaddressed and ignored throughout the country. This is a serious problem, and the therapy/rehabilitation that prison systems have do not always help those who are mentally ill. Prison involvement itself can contribute to increased suicide (Hills, Holly). One ‘therapy’ that has increased throughout the years has been the use of solitary confinement, which has many negative effects on the inmates.
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Mary Beth Pfeiffer's Crazy In America
901 Words | 2 Pages
In the book Crazy in America: The Hidden Tragedy of our Criminalized Mentally Ill, Mary Beth Pfeiffer argues that the government has failed America's mentally ill population. She shows how, after the closing and downsizing of many mental hospitals, there have not been sufficient programs to take care of the mentally ill and help them live normal lives. Instead, these people often relapse and end up in jail, where their psychotic outbursts are punished harshly, exacerbating their illnesses. The author presents six anecdotes of mentally ill people suffering due to stays in prison or encounters with the police. In each case, she first gives a background on the person's life, then tells the story of how he or she first began getting into legal trouble, and then describes the events leading up to the incident and the incident itself. Finally, she
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The Criminal Justice System And Mental Illness
1108 Words | 3 Pages
Prior to taking this course, I generally believed that people were rightly in prison due to their actions. Now, I have become aware of the discrepancies and flaws within the Criminal Justice system. One of the biggest discrepancies aside from the imprisonment rate between black and white men, is mental illness. Something I wished we covered more in class. The conversation about mental illness is one that we are just recently beginning to have. For quite a while, mental illness was not something people talked about publicly. This conversation has a shorter history in American prisons. Throughout the semester I have read articles regarding the Criminal Justice system and mental illness in the United States. Below I will attempt to describe how the Criminal Justice system fails when they are encountered by people with mental illnesses.
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The Criminalization of the Mentally Ill
3759 Words | 8 Pages
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.
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The American Family By Stephanie Coontz Summary
1511 Words | 4 Pages
It’s not easy to build an ideal family. In the article “The American Family” by Stephanie Coontz, she argued that during this century families succeed more when they discuss problems openly, and when social institutions are flexible in meeting families’ needs. When women have more choices to make their own decisions. She also argued that to have an ideal family women can expect a lot from men especially when it comes to his involvement in the house. Raymond Carver, the author of “Where He Was: Memories of My Father”, argued how his upbringing and lack of social institutions prevented him from building an ideal family. He showed the readers that his mother hide all the problems instead of solving them. She also didn’t have any choice but to stay with his drunk father, who was barely involved in the house. Carvers’ memoir is relevant to Coontz argument about what is needed to have an ideal family.
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Summary Of American Dream By Brandon King
1937 Words | 4 Pages
People who work hard enough become successful and build a good life for themselves and their family. Millions of Americans and others who admire America have believed this for generations. However, is this still true? Brandon King debates his interpretation of the American Dream in his published work, “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?” During his essay, the speaker highlights how important the American Dream is to the economy and providing a distance from inequality. The speaker emphasizes his belief that the American Dream is still alive within America and that people must work hard to achieve it. When discussing the American Dream, King will agree that the idea is alive and thriving in the minds of Americans; yet, I argue that the idea is on hold within American society due to lack of upward social independence and economic mobility.
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Crazy In America Summary

Kings Park State Hospital Summary