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Drug abuse and mental health research papers
Substance abuse and mental disorder essay
Substance abuse and mental disorders research papers
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Comorbidity, when someone has more than one condition, is very common when someone suffers from mental illness and substance abuse (Whitbourne & Halgin, 2013). Ralph Tortorici had a substance abuse problem and was diagnosed with extreme depression, fixed delusion accompanied by suspiciousness, delusional disorder, and with schizophrenic paranoid type. He was deemed incompetent to stand trial by a court appointed psychiatrist. He was later deemed competent to stand trial because his condition seemed to improve while he was in a psychiatric ward. To be competent in the state of New York, he must understand the charges against him, and help in his own defense (Frontline, 2014). Considering Ralph Tortorici’s behavior and diagnosis, I feel that
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.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti -- were they guilty or just victims of circumstance? You decide. This case was one of the most controversial court cases in America's history and soon you will know why.
To begin with, it is vital to understand the history of co-occurring disorders. Late in the 1970s, mental health providers started noticing that their clients commonly had mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Then, “by the 1990s, substance abuse treatment programs typically reported that 50 to 75 percent of clients had co-occurring mental disorders, while clinicians in mental health settings reported that between 20 to 50 percent of their clients had a co-occurring substance use disorder” (SAMHSA, 2005). That being said, one needs to understand that co-occurring disorders affect people from different walks of life, cultures, socioeconomic status, and racial backgrounds. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that many of the cases that were reported and diagnosed in the past and present are not an accurate number of how many people in the United States live with a co-occurring disorder.
In conclusion, competency, sanity and diminished capacity differ in several ways, despite the fact that, they all involve mental health. Psychologists determine the competency level of a defendant. Legislators and judges determine the sanity of a defendant. Diminished capacity deals with mental health of the defendant at the time of committing the offence. The judge and legislators determine diminished capacity. The behaviors that john smith showed in jail, at the court and during the evaluation render him incompetent.
In 1984 Christopher James Paolini was born on the 17th of November in Los Angeles to Talita Hodgkinson and Kenneth Paolini. Though born in California he was initially raised in the beautiful Paridise Valley in Montana with his parents and sister, Angela. This was what inspired his first novel Eragon. Christopher and his sister were enrolled into the American School online after years of homeschooling with there mother, a trained Montessori teacher. This method of schooling was the best choosen because it gave, as JWR would say, Paolini a wide latitude with the extra time to began exploring his own interests, the works of writting literature. Aoround the age of 10 Christopher began to discover the world of fantsy, but with each book he read he became frustersated by the lack of quality. Wanting to live in a world full of fantasy, one that had the quality he though a book should have he decided to write his own. Christopher started out writting small works of literature that he would sell . Christopher said that he began to work on Eragon ,which would later become his first book ever written, at the mere age of 14. Since he didn't know what he wanted for the book he could never really write past more than a few pages. Christopher is now 30 years old and has finished his Eragon series call the Inheritance Cycle.
Malingering is to exaggerate or feign illness to escape work. Research shows that defendants who are evaluated for competency to stand trial and are charged with a murder trial are more likely to malinger. It is logical that a defendant would want to deliberate feigning and exaggeration of physical or psychological symptoms in order to avoid a negative outcome. A defendant’s competency to stand trial does not exclude them from being sentenced, either way, if incompetent, they are sent to be hospitalized in a mental institution. In most cases, defendants are competent to stand trial, whereas a little over ten percent are incompetent. If a defendant purposely caused the murder of another person, but suffers from schizophrenia, then they might be incompetent to stand trial. They would be hospitalized in a secure facility in the attempt to return them to competency. On the other hand, if an individual is not restorable to competency, then they would be
In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli considers Cesare Borgia to be perfect example for princes or whomever, to follow if they wish to apprehend how to secure and strengthen their principalities. Cesare Borgia, for Machiavelli, is an ideal lesson of a prince who had great prowess, gained his principality through good fortune by his father Pope Alexander VI, showed continuous actions by his efforts to secure his state quickly, and then lost it to adverse fortune, which led to his fall and death. Machiavelli uses many events of Cesare Borgia’s to show how and why he was successful, and should me imitated as a model of prudence by ambitious princes.
In the story, Tartuffe a man by the name of Orgon is very gullible and naïve towards his family. He is wrapped around Tartuffe’s finger and does whatever he demands. Tartuffe is a hypocrite that uses people to get what he wants. He has a way of getting inside people’s mind and making them believe his every word. However, Orgon’s family knows the kind of man he is and tries to warn Orgon about him, but he does not listen. It is not long after Orgon finds out the kind of man Tartuffe is when he hears him hitting on his wife. Tartuffe has power over Orgon, because he is easily convinced to do whatever he want.
Apart from the apparent accident, victims may fear that the first crime will reoccur in the future. The fear, confusion, and hatred affecting accident victims, coupled with inaction by the judicial system may provoke others to also engage in drunk driving. Sometimes, the defense attorneys front a rationale that the suspect has mental issues and thus their actions cannot be counted on them because of psychological impairment (Karjalainen, Lintonen, Joukamaa, & Lillsunde, 2013). The dismissal of cases of cognitive dissonance increases the chance of the offenders repeating the action. Furthermore, even the courts know and classify these individuals as mentally ill patients in need of treatment and management of their
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.
Lamb, H. R. (2004). Mentally ill persons in the criminal justice system: Some perspectives. Psychiatric Quarterly, 108-126.
Mental Illness Fellowship Victoria. (2008) Understanding dual diagnosis: mental illness and substance use. Retrieved from http://www.mifellowship.org/sites/default/files/styles/Fact%20Sheets/Understanding%20Dual%20Diagnosis.pdf
The insanity defense pertains that the issue of the concept of insanity which defines the extent to which a person accused of crimes may be alleviated of criminal responsibility by reason of mental disease. “The term insanity routinely attracts widespread public attention that is far out of proportion to the defense’s impact on criminal justice” (Butler,133). The decision of this defense is solely determined by the trial judge and the jury. They determine if a criminal suffers from a mental illness. The final determination of a mental disease is solely on the jury who uses evidence and information drawn from an expert witness. The result of such a determination places the individual accused, either in a mental facility, incarcerated or released from all charges. Due to the aforementioned factors, there are many problems raised by the insanity defense. Some problems would be the actual possibility of determining mental illness, justify the placement of the judged “mentally ill” offenders and the total usefulness of such a defense. In all it is believed that the insanity defense should be an invalid defense and that it is useless and should potentially be completely abolished.
This paper will compare Gordon W. Prange's book "At Dawn We Slept - The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor" with the film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" directed by Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, and Toshio Masuda. While the film provides little background to the attack, its focal point is on the Pearl Harbor assault and the inquiry of why it was not prevented, or at least foreseen in adequate time to decrease damage. Prange's book examines the assault on Pearl Harbor from both the Japanese and American viewpoints to gain a global view of the situation and the vast provision undertaken by Japanese intelligence. The film and book present the Japanese side, the American side, the events that lead up to the attack, and the aftermath.
includes not only mental illness but also mental deficiencies. Due to this, there are problems in exactly how to apply a medical theory to a legal matter (Herman,