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The imprisonment of offenders with mental health problems has been the most unsettling aspect of the penal practice. Since the starting installment of prisons, they were the perfect setting for the mentally ill. Today the number of offenders with mental disorders is grossing immensely and prisons and correctional centers are overflowing. A wide range of these offenders carries disorders such as schizophrenia, which is the inability to think and/or process emotions. Depending on the crime and the mental state of the offender, mentally ill criminals should not be put in prisons but rather given treatment in mental health institutions. This essay will discuss by making evident the deinstitutionalization, offender’s treatment in prison, and the suicide rate.
To begin, mental health offenders deserve to be treated and not punished. The primary cause of many mentally ill offenders finding themselves in prison is on account of the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric institutions within the last 3o years (The Globe and Mail). Deinstitutionalization is the action of replacing mental health hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for those suffering from the conditions. This process works in two ways: the first by reforming mental hospitals so as to eliminate or reduce reinforcement of dependency, hopelessness, and other dysfunctional behaviours; the second one centralizes on reducing the population size of mental institutes by shortening the stays, releasing patients, and reducing both admissions and readmissions rates (Wikipedia, 2013).
Starting with a positive goal to help these ill people, it ended up causing more harm them well. Public and private psychiatric hospitals contain about 100,000 beds, meaning that...

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...ut in prisons but rather given treatment in mental health institutions.
Hence, it has been made evident by examining the deinstitutionalization, the offender’s treatment in prison, and the suicide rate that a wide range of these offenders’ carries serious mentally disorders and requires professional attention. Depending on the crime and the mental state of the offender, mentally ill criminals should not be put in prisons but rather given treatment in mental health institutions. It has been demonstrated that the correctional system is noplace for them, and lack the appropriate measures a psychiatric hospital would have to take care of these inmates. Therefore the state needs to invest in putting mentally ill offenders in specialized programs or facilities were they could serve their sentences - depending on their crimes- and still be able to receive proper treatment.

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