Mental Illness In Prisons

668 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Mental illness in prisons essay

In prisons and jails there are individuals that have mental illnesses, some of the individuals know they have a mental illness before ending up in the criminal justice system but some do not and end up getting diagnosed while incarcerated. This paper has three major parts about individuals that have mental illnesses that are incarcerated; how improving the mental health scanning individuals that are going into corrections more accuracy will be beneficial in providing the necessary care, how individuals with mental illness are treated in the correctional facilities and treatments they receive in correctional facilities, and should mentally ill individuals be in prison and jails or health facilities, how metal health facilities have closed down, so when an individual has a mental illness and disobeys the law ends up in the criminal justice system.
In 2012, approximately one hundred forty nine thousand inmates have mental illness out of three hundred fifty six thousand inmates. (Torrey et al., 2014) So, approximately forty two percent of inmates have some sort of mental illness. Some of the mental illness an individual could have in general is substance abuse, depression, anxiety, personality disorders, psychosis and psychotic disorders, developmental disabilities, …show more content…

There was a research experiment done in Australian prison that aimed to find out what proportion of individuals have or had a mental illness, and the outcome of the assessment process if it ended in a referral to get appropriate treatment. The results of this experiment are that nineteen percent were diagnosed with a current mental illness and twenty percent were diagnosed with having a mental illness in their past. But, out of those percentages not many went for further evaluation to decide if they have more needs, and require more observation. (Schilders & Ogloff,

Show More
Related

  • Crazy Chapter Summary

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    Today, prisons are the nation’s primary providers of mental health care, and some do a better job than others. Pete Earley focuses his research on the justice system in Miami, Florida. He documents how the city’s largest prison has only one goal for their mentally ill prisoners: that they do not kill themselves. The prison has no specialized

    Read More

  • The Tour At Twin Towers Correctional Facility

    1854 Words  | 4 Pages

    The tour at Twin Towers Correctional Facility was a great experience. I had the opportunity to experience a brief overview of what inmates with mental illness go through everyday in jail. These inmates are mainly grouped by the severity of the crime they committed, severity of their mental illness, and sexuality. The tour took place in one of the twin towers, which has seven floors and each floor houses different level of inmates. The most severe mentally ill inmates, who have no free time, are housed in the seventh floor. These are the inmates that throw “gases” the most frequently, which are any form of bodily fluids/solids towards the staff. Examples of the typical gases are feces, urine, and blood. As the floors drop, the inmates’ degree of being dangerous to themselves and/or others decreases. Once inmates are put into a certain floor, inmates have the opportunity to go down floors based on their cooperation with personnel and if their mental illness appears to be controlled. Psychiatrists evaluate every inmate upon entering the facility and are able to see his or her progress. Some inmates never make it out of the facility even though they did their time for the crime they committed. These inmates are too mentally ill to be released to the outside world. In addition, inmates wear different color clothes and that lets jailers know how to behave around different inmates. Some are more dangerous than others; therefore, a jailer needs to be more careful with some inmates than others. Also, some inmates do not wear clothes because they are under suicide watch, thus they only wear a blue suicide vest.

    Read More

  • Mental Health Disorders in the Criminal Justice System: Annotated Bibliography

    2216 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Prevalence of Mental Illness in our Criminal Justice System

    2045 Words  | 5 Pages

    Furthermore, there are around 10 million individuals booked through the jail systems in a year. Of these 10 million individuals, around 700,000 of these individuals have symptoms of serious mental illness. However, though already high numbers, these numbers are expected to be lower than the actual due to individuals not wanting to report or not knowing to report thei...

    Read More

  • Inmate Health Care

    987 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are some inmates in jails and prisons that have a mental illness. It has been estimated that 10% to 16% of at adults in U.S prisons and jails have some kind of a mental illness (Mackain and Messer. p.89). It was calculated that 10% of male and 18% of females have a serious mental disorder (Mackain and Messer. p.89)...

    Read More

  • Mentally Ill Inmates

    1660 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the article “The Mentally Ill Are Mishandled by the Justice System”, Shannon explains how there are approximately 3000 mentally ill inmates in a prison who are unjustfuly sent there. Many mental illnesses are cause by post traumatic experiences such as being abused as a child or being sexually abused as a child. She also explains how many times judges and officers do not fully understand why mentally ill people do what they do, therefore they misunderstand the person’s actions and send them.

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects Of Solitary Prisonation In Prisons

    1427 Words  | 3 Pages

    Screening and evaluations for mental illnesses can help to identify individuals who could potentially hurt or endanger themselves and others. Screenings would also help determine if an inmate is able to function in the prison system or not. If the inmate cannot function in the prison system, then it could help to see if he should be transferred to a mental health facility. Mental health and substance abuse screenings are beneficial for many reasons and need to be put into prisons and jails. Although, some prisons do have rehabilitation programs for the inmates that need it, the therapy sometimes does not help.

    Read More

  • The Application of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Within a Prison Setting

    1432 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Mental Illness And Mental Health

    1917 Words  | 4 Pages

    were males, 7221, and the rest 564 were females. In order to see if the participates had any sort of mental illness they looked at self reported treatment, related to mental health (Biltz). The results of this study found that the amount of inmates that participating in this study had a disproportionally number of inmates with mental healthy that were physically victimized. According to this study prisons are a violent and unsafe place for people who suffer from mental illness (Biltz). Male inmates who suffered from any form of mental illness were nearly 1.6 times more likely to be physically victimized while in prison. Females inmates who had a mental illness were even more likely to suffer from physical victimization, they were nearly 2 times more likely than male inmates with mental illness (Blitz). Inmates that were African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to be physically victimized either by inmates or staff.

    Read More

  • 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.

    Read More

  • 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.

    Read More

  • Mental Health within the Criminal Justice System

    2586 Words  | 6 Pages

    Critical to understanding the extent of the problem is a clear definition of mentally ill, “a person suffering from mental illness and, owing to that illness, there are reasonable grounds for believing that care, treatment or control of the person is necessary for the person’s own protection from serious harm, or for the protection of others from serious harm” [Mental Health Act 2007 (NSW)]. Noting that the statute specifies the ‘control’ of this group which adds to the notion that people with mental health problems are inherently more dangerous members of our society. Furthermore mental health problems within the prison system (inmate population) are estimated to be three to four times higher than in the general Australian popula...

    Read More

  • Schizophrenia And Criminality Essay

    661 Words  | 2 Pages

    The association of mental illnesses with criminal activity is allocated to the observation that a not overwhelming, but noticeable percentage of people in jails or prisons have mental illnesses. Mental disorders that can become very severe if untreated or treated inadequately, like schizophrenia, can be found among individuals in the criminal justice system that have committed crimes ranging from a misdemeanors to felonies. Although individuals with schizophrenia could have committed non-violent crimes, the violent ones, such as disturbing the peace by yelling or appearing threatening, domestic abuse, and murder, could be due to several factors that show people with schizophrenia have a higher risk of aggressive behavior (National Alliance on Mental Illness [NAMI], 2008).

    Read More

  • The Effect of Prison on Inmates

    1768 Words  | 4 Pages

    Prison has been around in human society for many millions of years. Having someone who disobeyed the law of that village, town, city or country punished in some form of institution, cutting them off from people, is a common concept – a popular and supposedly “needed” process society has taken to doing for many years now has been put under the spotlight many times by many different figures and people in society. The question remains – do prisons only make people worse? Many articles have been published in many journals and newspapers of the western world (mainly the USA, UK and Australia) saying prison only makes a person worse yet no complaint of the method has come from the less liberal eastern societies; this only proves how in countries where the rights of humans are valued such issues as if prisons only make people worse are important and relevant to keeping fair to all.

    Read More

  • Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System

    1892 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Mental Illness In Prisons

Open Document