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Impacts of mental illness essay
Impacts of mental illness essay
Impacts of mental illness essay
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In the United States 2,193,798 people are held in Federal prisons, local prisons and local/county jails. In local prisons 64.2 % of the inmates have a mental illness, 56.2 % in Federal prisons and 44.8 % in state prisons. Most of the inmates could have prevented their stay at the prisons if they were provided help for their illness, however they were not and they still have to serve their sentenced time. The inmates locked up are abused daily by other inmates or even the officers in charge. They cannot help they have illness and it is not fair that they have to suffer a punishment worse than they already have to. They are tormented and the abuse does not help their situation, the agitation can even make their condition worse, and the treatment for their illness is low quality if there is any at all. They are given harsh punishments or can even have their sentence made longer.
Many people go about their lives not knowing that they have a mental illness. Some like anxiety and panic disorders are easily spotted some are not if they aren’t talked about you would never know that the person was diagnosed with anything. Some commonly known illnesses would be: ADD/ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), OCD (Obsessive compulsive disorder), PTS (Post Traumatic Stress disorder), autism, depression, and eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. The lesser known illnesses include: SAD (Seasonal Affective disorder), Schizophrenia, Bipolar and Personality disorders, anxiety and panic disorders. There is also an increase in dual diagnosis, in which the person is diagnosed with both a mental disorder and substance abuse (Alcohol and or prescription or non-prescription drugs). It is estimated that 26.2 percent of the American Populati...
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...n it already is. Many jails and prisons do not have the funds to supply the inmates with treatment for their mental illness, and what little they do have barely causes a dent in the problem. Many who need medication cannot afford it. It is unfair and should be brought to state’s attention to get help for these people. They get raped or they get bribed with things they want like coffee or snacks. They do not get any special treatment even if it is symptom. The guards treat them just like any other inmate they are in prison with, but they are not normal people they need special care and they are not being properly cared for in the prisons. They are treated terribly, but whether they are in prisons or out on the streets they are still getting judged, tormented, taken advantage of and they commit suicide. The ones who cannot afford help live their whole life suffering.
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
There’s a myriad of mental illnesses out there; in fact over 200 classified forms. The most common being anxiety, stress, depression, bipolar and schizophrenia,
Mental illness is an increasing problem in America. Currently about 26.2% of Americans suffer from a mental disorder. A mental illness/disorder is a medical condition that disrupts a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, and ability to relate to others and daily functions. Mental illness can affect humans of any age, race, gender and socioeconomic status. However the care that is needed to effectively cure and help the people affected by the illness is not equal for everyone here in American, especially for African Americans.
Mental illness is more common than one would like to believe. In reality, one in five Americans will suffer from a mental disorder in any given year. Though that ratio is about equivalent to more than fifty-four million people, mental illness still remains a shameful and stigmatized topic (National Institute of Mental Health, n.d.). The taboo of mental illness has an extensive and exhausting history, dating back to the beginning of American colonization. It has not been an easy road, to say the least.
Wouldn’t it be completely irrational to sentence every mentally ill individual to jail purely because they suffered from a mental illness? Often, mentally ill people behave in an eccentric manner and allure the attention of police officers who do not differentiate the mentally ill from mentally stable people and immediately charge them with misdemeanors. There are approximately 300,000 inmates, with the number increasing every year, which suffer from a mental illness and do not receive proper treatment. Jails are not adequately equipped to care for mentally ill inmates, which can lead to an escalation of an inmate’s illness. Society has failed to provide enough social resources for citizens suffering from psychiatric illnesses in its community, transferring mentally unstable individuals between mental institutions and jails, when in fact adequate aid such as providing proper medication, rehabilitation opportunities, and more psychiatric hospitals in communities is a necessity to reconstitute these individuals.
As an overview, schizophrenia is a disease to the brain. It is one of the most disabling and emotionally devastating illnesses known to man. It has been misunderstood for a long time. It has a biological basis, so it is like other diseases. It is a very common disease; one percent to one and a half percent of the U.S. has been diagnosed within some point in their life. There is no cure for this disease, although there is treatable medicine. Schizophrenia is not a multiple personality disorder. People who take medicine for it are able to lead normal fulfilling lives.
The purpose of jail is to control criminals, decrease crime rates, decrease recidivism, and by the end of the inmate 's sentencing individuals are expected to return to society as if everything were “normal”. However, the majority of individuals who are incarcerated is because they did not pay fines, they were not able to post bail, or because they have a mental health diagnosis. Who knew jails were the new models of psychiatric facilities. It’s been proven that people with mental illness often experience worsened symptoms, recidivism, and abuse while incarcerated. Which poses the question of is jail the place individuals with a mental health diagnosis should be?
With the conditions of both jail and prison seem to be unjust, it seems like a reform to prisons and jails could be made. Ismael Nazario says a person’s experience in jail can be very traumatizing, and based on the conditions in prisons, can encourage inmates to continue to be criminals. ("What I Learned as a Kid in Jail." Ismael Nazario) Many people end up getting cancer in both because
In a country based around free will, the United States contains a vast variety of personalities and behaviors. Plenty of people, probably more than we know, exert abnormal behavior. Abnormal behavior is patterns of emotion, thought, and action that are considered pathological. Historically, people blame witchcraft for this eccentric type of behavior and tended to perform exorcisms in hopes of abolishing such actions. Anxiety disorders and personality disorders, two forms of abnormal behavior, can alter a person’s personality as a result of life experiences.
The only instances that cause a debate on mental health is when an individual does something that is criminal or hard to comprehend. The media get experts to look in on the catastrophe, and explain why they did it. Mental Illness is a worldwide problem and is often considered a "Hidden epidemic" as it stretches to institutions like jail, schools, family, and the media. Most mentally ill people are afraid to seek treatment mostly due to the stigma, prejudice, and discrimination that are attached to the label. The Label that comes with being mentally ill often leads to depression. Mental illness is largely misunderstood in the United States and can be treated; the following paragraphs reveal treatment, as well as causes and effects of stigmas on society, poverty, Insurance, the educational system, and the media.
Addressing many of the determinants such as income and housing (Mikkonen, & Raphael, 2010) are effective ways to deal with prevention of mental health problems in younger children. These determinants are linked (based on class discussion) and form the underlying grounds for maltreatment and neglect leading to increased mental health problems in young children and ensuing foster care placement. Although this is significant, this paper has emphasized the growing number of young children already residing in foster care with increasing mental health needs. Early childhood development directly influences young children, especially ones in foster care. The current initiatives being implemented attempt organizational change yet occur at the interpersonal level and fail to address the gaps identified earlier. As with my experience at the Children’s Cottage, interventions were at the interpersonal level. While the caregivers had early childhood training, many were lacking in how to provide proper mental health care to the foster children that frequented the facility. In depth training on the complex issues that foster children face, such as maltreatment and neglect was overlooked. Therefore, in my opinion, building upon these interventions and applying them to an organizational level allows for the reduction and or resolution of those gaps. The organizational level has the ability to promote health on a wider scale (K. Raine, personal communication, November 15, 2013). Many families use organizations such as the Cottage thus, becoming prime opportunity for collectively changing/improving mental health for all young foster children.
There are many diseases and disorders that may affect the human mind. Some of these are serious, while others are minor and may not even be noticed. Some of the disorders and diseases to be covered in this report are delirium, dementia, and schizophrenia, also a discussion of specific symptoms and treatments available for the different disorders.
According to Goomany & Dickinson (2015), there are many concerns that prison may not be an applicable setting for prisoners to be rehabilitated. Many prisoners have pre-existing mental health complications, and prison life can lead to deteriorating mental health issues, increased severity of the disease, and increased risk of prisoners harming themselves. In fact, mental health problems within the prison system are the leading cause of illness for prisoners. Scheyett, Parker, White, Davis, & Wohl (2010) states “A recent report by the United States Department of Health and Human Services indicates that an estimated fifty-six percent of state prison inmates had symptoms or recent history of a mental health problem; forty-seven percent of these reported three or more symptoms of major depression, compared with 7.9% of the general population of the United States” (p. 301). Research has shown that inmates that experience mental health issues are far higher than other prisoners in the general population to commit suicide during their first week of incarceration. Moschetti, Stadelmann, Wangmo, Holly, Bodenmann, Wasserfallen, & Gravier, (2015) comments that 35.1% of prisoners examined during a recent survey suffered from some form of mental disorder and among all inmates forty percent had at least one physical chronic health
Schizophrenia is a serious, chronic mental disorder characterized by loss of contact with reality and disturbances of thought, mood, and perception. Schizophrenia is the most common and the most potentially sever and disabling of the psychosis, a term encompassing several severe mental disorders that result in the loss of contact with reality along with major personality derangements. Schizophrenia patients experience delusions, hallucinations and often lose thought process. Schizophrenia affects an estimated one percent of the population in every country of the world. Victims share a range of symptoms that can be devastating to themselves as well as to families and friends. They may have trouble dealing with the most minor everyday stresses and insignificant changes in their surroundings. They may avoid social contact, ignore personal hygiene and behave oddly (Kass, 194). Many people outside the mental health profession believe that schizophrenia refers to a “split personality”. The word “schizophrenia” comes from the Greek schizo, meaning split and phrenia refers to the diaphragm once thought to be the location of a person’s mind and soul. When the word “schizophrenia” was established by European psychiatrists, they meant to describe a shattering, or breakdown, of basic psychological functions. Eugene Bleuler is one of the most influential psychiatrists of his time. He is best known today for his introduction of the term “schizophrenia” to describe the disorder previously known as dementia praecox and for his studies of schizophrenics. The illness can best be described as a collection of particular symptoms that usually fall into four basic categories: formal thought disorder, perception disorder, feeling/emotional disturbance, and behavior disorders (Young, 23). People with schizophrenia describe strange of unrealistic thoughts. Their speech is sometimes hard to follow because of disordered thinking. Phrases seem disconnected, and ideas move from topic to topic with no logical pattern in what is being said. In some cases, individuals with schizophrenia say that they have no idea at all or that their heads seem “empty”. Many schizophrenic patients think they possess extraordinary powers such as x-ray vision or super strength. They may believe that their thoughts are being controlled by others or that everyone knows what they are thinking. These beliefs ar...
Prisons are institutionalized systems that hold people hostage against their will. Many believe that these institutions are fundamental to keep balance within society. Although prison systems are meant to seclude troubled individuals, it should go beyond just containing criminals. The judicial system is responsible for correcting and eliminating future delinquent behavior before they can be effectively situated back into society. In saying this, the court system does not implement these actions within prison systems, failing to fulfil the goals and the function of the prison overall. The U.S elots millions of dollars toward funding for our correctional system, but are unable to reform the basic natural rights and maltreatment within the prison system.