Mental Illness In Jail

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When one thinks of jail, they would think it’s filled with inmates who commit crimes without anything influencing them to do it. Down the road one will discover that many inmates commit crimes because they have been diagnosed with a mental illness. Many researchers suggest that there is a connection between mental illness patients and jails. Some of the things they suggests that influence this are social factors, major life crisis, and mental illness hospitals being shut down. What is a Mental Illness? A mental illness is something many people suffer from on a daily basis. A mental illness has many components to its definition but its broad definition of a mental illness is a medical condition that disrupts a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to …show more content…

In order to be diagnosed as a mental illness inmate, one has to require medication for serious issues ranging from major depressive disorders to schizophrenia and bipolar disorders” (Edwards & Mason, 2013). Sarah Varney (2014), argues that psychological disorders, including those like depression, bipolar disorder and trauma-related disorders are the most frequently diagnosed among jail inmates (Varney, 2014). How is Mental Illness and Jail Connected? Mental Illness percentage increases every day. According to Conely (2012) 1 in 5 Americans suffer from a mental illness (Conely, 2012). Mental illness converge with jail when one who has been diagnosed becomes incarcerated. Varney (2014) argues that there percentage of women to men with a mental illness in jails is 75% to 63%. Varney also suggests that the reason jails percentage of mental illness inmates are increasing because of psychiatric hospitals being shut down in the 1960s ( 2014, pp. 1). Varney also claims that psychiatric patients who are dynamically being treated for a mental illness is more than likely to get entwined in the criminal justice system ( Varney 2014, pp. 1). It was even reported that 12 percent of

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