Mental Illnes In Prison

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l------------------------------------------------- Mentally Ill Offenders in Prison ------------------------------------------------- Mental illness in prisons has been sort of a pandemic for correctional systems in the United States for over the last 10 years. The number of men and women who come to prison with some form of mental illness continues to grow by the day. Offenders who do not come to prison mentally ill, will most likely release from prison with some form of mental illness at the end of their incarceration. How this population of prisoners adapts when they come to prison, how they are viewed by the community will be examined here along with some insights on what should be done along with why I chose this topic. ------------------------------------------------- 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. Schizophrenia is a disorder that can be treated with medications in most instances. When left untreated however a schizophrenic can have

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