The mentally ill prison population presents unique challenges for prisons systems. The United States has the highest rate of adult incarceration among developed countries with nearly 2.2 million currently in jails and prisons. According to Human Rights Watch, the staggering rate of incarcerated mentally ill is a result of under-funded, disorganized and fragmented mental health services (2006). Prison systems need to address the needs of the mentally ill population. As Reginald Wilkinson, Director of the Ohio Rehabilitation and Corrections noted, Correction agencies will have to deal with this population sooner or later. Prisoners have a constitutional right to mental health care while incarnated and many systems have been sued for what the plaintiffs consider to be lack of mental health service delivery” (Gaseau 2004). Gradually over the past several years as the number of mentally ill offenders has drastically increased some states such as Ohio and Maryland have recognized that this is a large population that needs to be better managed and have begun to reform the treatment programs and care for the mentally ill; however, not all states have been as proactive at addressing the problem. Dealing with the mentally ill prison population is another major problem that needs to tackle by all state and federal prisons as this population continues to grow.
Problem Analysis:
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).
The United States criminal justice system has been continuously increasing incarceration among individuals who suffer from a sever mental illness. As of 2007 individuals with severe mental illness were over twice as likely to be found in prisons than in society (National Commission of Correctional Health Care, 2002, as cited in Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). The offenses that lead to their commitment in a criminal facility, in the majority of cases, derive from symptoms of their mental illness instead of deviant behavior. Our criminal justice system is failing those who would benefit more from the care of a psychiatric rehabilitation facility or psychiatric hospital by placing them in correctional facilities or prisons.
It is very hard to differentiate an ordinary mental health from a mental illness because there is no easy way of knowing unless you test them. Also, some mental health illnesses can be imitated by physical disorders. Mental health illnesses are ruled on any physical disorder, they are diagnosed and treated from the signs and symptoms, and also on how much the illness affects your everyday life ("Mental health: What's normal, what's not - Mayo Clinic", n.d.). Civil commitment laws have been around in the United States ever since the 1800s. Civil commitment cases mostly consist of family members of a mentally ill person who will try to commit the person in order to guarantee that they get help. The court system does not always care for civil commitment if the person is not showing direct danger or threats to them self or to others around them ("Civil Commitment of the Mentally Ill", n.d). In this paper we will talk about the insanity statutes being used in the state of Georgia and how often the insanity defense is being used, and the major criticisms of the insanity defense.
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?
...inical professor at the University of Colorado. Unless the country develops a decent mental health care system, this issue will continue (Qtd. In “Prison Health Care, 3). More than 2 million inmates in U.S. prisons suffer from mental illness, addiction, infectious, or chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS and diabetes (“Prison Health Care”, 1). About a quarter suffer from severe depression and a fifth from psychosis (2). The majority of prisoners have no health problems at the time they became incarcerated; once imprisoned, they acquired a mental disorder (1). In 1976, the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners have the right to free health care due to the Eighth Amendment (4). Yet, prisons fail to provide health care of decent quality. Some prisons do not even have licensed physicians (5). Most doctors do not wish to work in a prison, therefore resources become substandard.
Thousands of people statewide are in prisons, all for different reasons. However, the amount of mental illness within prisons seems to go unaddressed and ignored throughout the country. This is a serious problem, and the therapy/rehabilitation that prison systems have do not always help those who are mentally ill. Prison involvement itself can contribute to increased suicide (Hills, Holly). One ‘therapy’ that has increased throughout the years has been the use of solitary confinement, which has many negative effects on the inmates. When an inmate has a current mental illness, prior to entering into the prison, and it goes undiagnosed and untreated, the illness can just be worsened and aggravated.
The Mentally Ill in Jail
The articles inform that more mentally ill people are in jail than in hospitals. According to statistics 159,000 of mentally ill are presently incarcerated in jails and prisons, mostly of crimes committed because they were not being treated. Some of them become violent and may terrorize their families and neighborhoods. Tragically, most of those instances of incarceration are unnecessary.
While the U.S. government has passed many bills and laws protecting the rights of the mentally ill and the people around them, there are many aspects of the mental health program that point to the fact that there is still much work to be done.
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.