On any given day, about 70,000 are psychotic. These numbers represent a severe crisis for prison systems throughout the country. The report discusses two main reasons why the numbers have risen to a crisis level. First, as a result of the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s, many mental health hospitals were closed, but community mental health systems which were envisioned as taking the place of hospitals did not develop sufficiently. Many mentally ill—particularly the poor—are now without access to help.
Special populations create a lot of challenges for the prison environment. For example, mental illness. A. Lutz in her article 'Life Is Hard For The 1.3 Million Mental Patients Behind Bars In The US' states "There are 1.25 million mentally ill inmates in the U.S. justice system, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.' (Lutz, 2012). That's compared to only 40,000 in mental hospitals."
Factors that are taken into account when addressing the mentally ill are deinstitutionalization, more community and civic involvement, and formal training for the law enforcement who deal with this growing population. America’s prison system serves as the new asylum. After many mental institutions closed beginning in the mid 1960’s few alternatives materialized. Many individuals with mental health issues turned to the streets, where untreated they became vulnerable to drug abuse, crime, and joblessness. Roughly 5% of all adult Americans suffer from a serious illness according to a 2012 report by a division of the 2012 US Department of Health and Human Services.
State and federal prison authorities had jurisdiction over 1,610,446 prisoners at midyear 2008: 1,409,166 in state jurisdiction and 201,280 in federal jurisdiction. Local jails held 785,556 persons awaiting trial or serving a sentence at midyear 2008. An additional 72,852 persons under jail supervision were serving their sentence in the community. This is a very alarming rate! This is something to think
The time spent waiting in jail can be counted by months, years or even decade, especially in the USA where an average prisoner stays on death row for 15 years. It is a great suffering to watch the days passing by, wondering when they will end. Is it right to couple this sufferings with more physical pain? If the complications from the medical testing are dire, the helpless people have no way to escape from this torture. No therapy will be provided to alleviate their condition.
Writing Assignment Seven Describe how one of the following problems is affecting prisons in the United States: The Mentally Ill, Elderly and Physically Disabled. One in four adults—approximately 57.7 million Americans—experience a mental health disorder in a given year. One in 17 lives with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder (Fitzpatrick, 2006). Twenty-four percent of state prisoners and 21 percent of local jail prisoners have a recent history of a mental health disorder. Given the number of incarcerated inmates who suffer from some form of mental illness, there are growing concerns and questions in the medical field about treatment of the mentally ill in the prison system.
United States addresses the issue of determining the length of criminal commitment. Michael Jones was diagnoses with paranoid schizophrenia and committed to a public mental hospital until he was competent to stand trial. Jones eventually pled not guilty by reason of insanity. The maximum sentence for his crime is one year in prison. He was in the mental hospital for seven years when the Supreme Court heard his appeal.
------------------------------------------------- Many mentally ill offenders come to prison with a variety of disorders schizophrenia, manic depression (bi-polar) or major depression (Schizophrenia.com - Crime, Poverty Violence., n.d.). Schizophrenic inmates probably account for the largest segment of offenders who enter the correctional system every day and have a difficult time adapting to the confines of a correctional environment. By definition schizophrenia is an inability to think, process emotions where people tend to behave in an unacceptable manner because their mind is not able to react to the stimuli from every day life; the name schizophrenia comes from the Greek root "split mind" (Skitzophrenia., n.d.). Hallucinations, hearing voices, paranoia are just some of the symptoms exhibited by mentally ill offenders. These issues will many times keep offenders from acting in a rational manner, causing them to overreact to situations that for people who have no mental illness handle just fine.
They don’t want to become known as the “snitch”. In recent studies, it has been found out that in the United States prisons alone, an estimated 364,000 males and female inmates were sexually assaulted in one year. Any young inmates that are physically small or weak, have a mental illness, are known as the “snitches”, are not in a gang, or convicted of any sexual crimes are at a higher risk of being the victim of sexual assault. Inmate suicide has been going on for years and is a problem that has not decreased. Newly arrested people who have been taken to a local jail
The correctional system | December 20 2011 | Punishment VS- Rehalbitation what do I think about each of these and which 1 I would choose and which 1 works best. | [Type the document subtitle] | The punishment in our prison system is not a punishment at all the time spent in prison is the punishment. Some of our offenders adjust to prison life, some don’t. I have a nephew actually, was ok when he started his time then as time went on his mind became unstable and had to be put on medication in our system, and makes the offenders go crazy. So there for their punishment, ends up being more into going crazy in the system.