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Treating prisoners with mental illness essay
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Describe your topic of interest.
My topic of interest is the large population of individuals with mental disorders in the prison systems.
Identify the pressing social problem that you want to investigate.
The pressing social problem that I want to investigate is the lack of treatment and support for those individuals.
Specify which two sub-disciplines of psychology you have selected to inform your evidence-based social program or applied research project, and explain why you have selected these two disciplines, in particular.
The two subdisciplines of psychology that I have selected are Clinical Psychology and Forensic Psychology. I selected Clinical Psychology because I will be focusing on the treatment of mental disorders. I selected
Australian Institute of Criminology, 2007, The identification of mental health disorders in the criminal justice system, prepared by Ogloff, J.R.P., Davis, M.R., Rivers, G. and Ross, S., Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra.
I chose to analyze a report made against a county jail being that many correctional facilities lack the adequate resources to care for detainees needing mental health treatment. The allegations made against Henry County Jail was that a detainee's mental health needs were not met and they were required to pay a copay to see a physician, nurse, or access their prescribed medications. Another allegation was that the detainee and fellow inmates on suicide watch were placed in unstable conditions. The complaint stated that the detainee was placed in a cell with two other individuals who were also on suicide watch and were denied medications. It also explained that these detainees were required to sleep on a concrete floor for three months being
illnesses. It is estimated that about 50 percent of prison population suffers from some sort of mental illness. The most common mental illnesses that mostly make up this population are anxiety, antisocial personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder.
In order to effectively break the cycle of crime and poverty that many individuals in the county jail system are victimized by due to unresolved psychological issues (such as trauma), we must work to treat and rehabilitate those incarcerated. The importance of reentry treatment for trauma issues of inmates is deeply enmeshed in evidence based practice and trauma informed practice. There is a direct correlation between trauma treatment for inmates and lowered recidivism. In order to ensure that there is a lower incidence of reoffence it is imperative to explore the root precipitant of the offenses. Unresolved trauma leads to poor impulse control, anger outbursts, depressive symptoms and increased likelihood of substance abuse. In addressing
The practice of researching human behavior, which dates back to most ancient civilizations, has become better understood and more effective over time. This research led to modern psychology and has become increasingly broad since the first notion that one person could observe and measure the reasoning behind another person’s actions. Researchers in the field can study psychology as a whole or one of the various sub-disciplines that psychology breaks down into. These sub-disciplines range from the psychology of learning to fringe theoretical psychology. The men and women who conduct studies in the psychological field, referred to as psychologists, continue research in their sub-disciplines to add to the knowledge of the community. Psychologists focus on the study of the mind while clinicians treat individuals that suffer from psychological disorders. Now that I have covered psychology’s growth, I will move on to the ways that psychology currently impacts the world.
...are Program For Inmates With A Chronic Mental Illness.” Jour of Forensic Psychology Proctice 4.2. (2004): 87-100. Academic Search Complete. Web 5 May 2014
The current prison and criminal justice system has not proven to be helpful in rehabilitating offenders and preventing recidivism. To successfully alter this situation it is important to understand what steps and measures are available to assist those who find themselves imprisoned. The techniques used in cognitive behavioral therapy have proven to be effective in treating depression, anxiety and drug addictions among other things. Analyzing the techniques developed in cognitive behavioral theory and applying them to psychotherapy in prison environments can assist in making improvements in the prevention of criminal activity, rates of incarceration and safety and security of the general population. The literature shows that the use of cognitive behavioral therapy has been effective in the treatment of a variety of criminal offenders.
I wanted to look more into mental illness within prison walls because this affects me personally. I have a family member who suffers from bipolar disorder and similar to from what I have read in these articles, she has had numerous run ins with the police due to her illness. None of these encounters have resulted in her being arrested and sentenced, but numerous of these run ins have lead to the cops bringing her or suggesting to the family to bring her into the psychiatric centers. Now taking this course I have realized how lucky she is for not being arrested. As we have talked about in class women and hispanics are the the fastest growing population in prisons and she is both as well as having a mental disorder.
A huge factor in the prevalence of mental health problems in United States prison and jail inmates is believed to be due to the policy of deinstitutionalization. Many of the mentally ill were treated in publicly funded hospitals up until the 1960’s. Due to budget cuts and underfunding of community mental health services we ...
Freedom in any society is a condition that is directly correlated to the compliance of society’s rules, regulations, and laws. This right afforded to citizens under the constitution is surrendered by those who choose to disregard and trample on the set of standards and behavior needed for a society to maintain order and avoid anarchy. When loss of freedom is the tool used to punish this segment of society, prisons become the instrumentality used to carry out the various freedom restrictions under the law for each individual. Citizens who find themselves incarcerated in prison will be exposed to an entirely different environment than those in free society. In addition, there is a psychological impact on those being reintroduced into society after having completed long-term sentences, an impact many believe contribute to the high recidivism rates in the United States. The criminal justice system with all of its connected inner workings may not address all of the concerns inside and out of our current prison system, but just as we have improved on our prisons from the past, we will continue to improve and implement new techniques and design precise programs in our future prisons.
Haney, Craig. "Prison Overcrowding: Harmufl Consequences and Dysfunctional Reactions." Veradc.org. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. www.veradc.org.
This essay intends to address the role that state agencies, both within the Criminal Justice System (CJS) and more broadly the institutions of education, employment and health, play in supporting and implementing diversionary programs for offenders with mental health problems. Mental health is clearly one of the most critical issues facing the Australian and New South Wales (NSW) CJS with research indicating that offenders with mental health problems constitute the majority of those within the prison system. The current strategies for diversion will be critically evaluated in order to determine their effectiveness with regard to the delivery and production of justice, cultural sensitivity for Indigenous Australians will also be considered. The social construction of mental illness and the associated process of stigmatisation of this particular group will be explored in conjunction to explain why society still fails to prevent the mass entry of people with mental health issues into the traditional CJS.
Mental health and the criminal justice system have long been intertwined. Analyzing and understanding the links between these two subjects demands for a person to go in to depth in the fields of criminology, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, because there are many points of view on whether or not a person’s criminal behavior is due to their mental health. Some believe that an unstable mental state of mind can highly influence a person’s decision of committing criminal actions. Others believe that mental health and crime are not related and that linking them together is a form of discrimination because it insinuates that those in our society that suffer from poor mental health are most likely to become a criminal due to their misunderstood behavior not being considered a normality in society. In this report I will go into detail of what mental health and mental illness is, what the differentiates a normal and a mentally unstable criminal, give examples of criminal cases where the defendant’s state of mind was brought up, introduce theories surrounding why one would commit crimes due to their mental health, and lastly I will discuss how the criminal justice system has been modified to accommodate mental health issues.
This WA assignment contains the following information: Mental Disorders and Criminal Behavior. When a person hears that someone is mentally ill the person may think right away that the mentally ill person is violent when they are not. There are many serious mental illnesses and disorders that can lead the person to have mental disorders. What is law? Many people believe that laws are “made up” or believe that the State does not need to live with laws. There are many Police officers that risk their lives daily to help others. Many Police officers put their lives in danger to rescue a stranger when the police officers have families waiting at home. Police officers on the job talks about how their jobs are not easy, their jobs are very demanding, controversial and deadly. The following three class activities from separate days are: Mr. Lopez and Mr. Ayers a homeless man with talent, Dahmer a young man who murdered eighteen victims, and selecting the right candidate to work in the Criminal Justice field.
Watson, Robert I., Sr., and Rand B. Evans. "William James and G. Stanley Hall: The Founding of Scientific Psychology in the United State." The Great Psychologists. 5th ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. 363-89. Print.