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Not too long ago, I learned that individuals with diagnosed mental illnesses who were found guilty for committing crimes are incarcerated rather than being placed in mental health facilities. These individuals are spending their time behind bars instead of getting treated for their illnesses. In the prison system, they are not receiving the right treatment as many of the prison guards are not properly trained to interact with individuals who are mentally ill. Their illnesses develop into a more severe condition. After they serve their time, they are released with little to no information about their illness, medications, and disease management. There are no recovery programs or rehabilitation being offered to these individuals. Some of them
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.
Mentally ill offenders face many challenges while being incarcerated and after being released. Rehabilitation is effective on mentally ill offenders by reducing their symptoms of distress and improving their behavior.
"Mentally Ill Offenders in the Criminal Justice System: An Analysis and Prescription." Sentencingproject. The Sentencing Project, Jan. 2002. Web. 07 May 2014.
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.
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.
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.
There are many different types of disabilities that an inmate can have whether it’s mobility, deaf, blindness or any other type being faced in the prison system. In 2009 there was a case where a disabled paraplegic complained and reported about his living conditions and the certain things that were unavailable to him and what he was not able to do as an individual who is handicapped. The filed complaint states, “Plaintiff Tony Goodman was an inmate at the Georgia State Prison, where he was confined to a 12 by 3 feet cell for 23 hours each day. The small confines of the cell made it difficult, if not impossible, for Goodman to turn in his chair, further; his cell was not outfitted with accessible bathroom facilities (Felg).” The individual in
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.
According to a study done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2005, roughly half of all jail and prison inmates in America suffer mental health problems. (James, et al. 2006) The prevalence of mental illness in the corrections system stems in part from the introduction of antipsychotic drugs in the 1960s. These medications helped treat the symptoms of mental illness and allowed many individuals suffering from mental illness to remain in the community. These medications were a great alternative for patients who would have otherwise been committed to mental institutions where they would not have been able to live normal, productive lives and would have received minimal treatment for their illnesses. Subsequent to this decrease of patients,
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.
In recent research from 1978-2014 the prison population has increased 408%. Currently it’s reported that 2.26 million people are currently in prison and half of those offenders are diagnosed with a mental disorders. Out of the 2.26 million people currently incarcerated 40% of those a diagnosed with a mental health disorders. Most individuals with mental health issues show signs upon booking but are not properly diagnosed if ever diagnosed within the system. Suicide is the leading way to death within prison which most times individuals who commit suicide in jail have some type of mental illness. Mental illness amongst offenders is estimated to be at least five times more prevalent than in the community (The Sentencing Project,
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
They have a special service provided in prison. Ruiz v. Estelle (1980) established components needed to deliver adequate mental health treatment in prison. On jail, they don't have the right to force them to take medications or services. In 2009, Two Inmates committed suicide and three others attempted suicide. One inmate had a psychotic breakdown assaulted a corrections officer. Some jails back then didn't had special cells designed for the mentally ill but when they are brought out of a cell some are separated from other inmates, while others are not. Mentally ill inmates need a special housing, jails have a fewer options for handling inmates from the other inmates population who have disciplinary problems. Mentally ill inmates often stay in the jail longer than they should because of the overcrowding at state hospitals or they don't have who to take care of them. I think we can safely say there is no doubt that jails and prisons have become America's Major mental health facilities. For Example, 60 percent of males and 80 percent of female inmates in state prisons, and 65 percent of female and 60 percent of the male in jail will experience a mental health problem requiring mental health services in jail. U.S courts have clearly said that prisoners have that right to receive medical and mental
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.
In "Prison Studies" Malcolm X briefly details how, during his incarceration, he embarked on a process of self-education that forever changed him and the course of his life. Malcolm writes of his determination to learn to read and write, born out of his envy and emulation of Bimbi, a fellow prisoner. His innate curiosity, sense of pride, and ambition to learn and be someone of substance motivated him to study relentlessly. As he learned more about the world he developed a great thirst for knowledge that left him with a lifelong desire that only his continued studies could satisfy. He believed that prison offered him the best possible situation in which to educate himself.