Mental Illnesses In Prisons

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The idea of proper treatment for those with mental illnesses is always misconstrued. Those incarcerated with mental illnesses are argued to not receive the proper care as they would if they were unconfined. It is argued that inmates’ availability to receive adequate medical assistance for their mental illnesses are minimized upon them being incarcerated.
Institutions are said to be held slightly accountable for the poor mental state of those admitted to their care. It is questioned whether prisons' rehabilitative services are correctly developed to provide comprehensive mental health and psychiatric programs to deal with those that are mentally unstable. With there being an array of mental illnesses, a variety of treatments are needed to keep …show more content…
They may show bizarre, annoying, or dangerous behavior and have greater rates of disciplinary violations than other prisoners. Upon being disciplined like any other inmate, they are then detached from others despite of its skeptical impact it has on those with mental illnesses. Once placed in segregation, continued misbehavior, often connected to mental illness, can detain the inmates there indefinitely. The solitary confinement of inmates with serious mental illness is seen as inhumanely cruel because of the psychological harm it can cause. The lack of concern of treating inmates is causing their mental health to constantly decrease and result in worsening conditions. With mental health issues being known to be the cause of some altercations among inmates within institutions, the importance is still not acknowledged. The very few that receive the minimum treatment for their mental illness are only getting medications, but not the therapy that is needed. Therefore, their state of mental health is still not at its full …show more content…
Instead, they were cared for by family, confined in jails, or placed in almshouses or poor houses which were houses endowed by private charity for the reception and support of the aged or infirm poor. Tennessee Legislature approved the first house for the insane in 1832. In 1840, the Tennessee Lunatic Asylum was opened in Nashville and was one of the first institutions for the mentally ill in the United States. Previously mentioned reformer, Dorothea Dix visited Tennessee in 1847 and declared the asylum in Nashville to be inadequate. Dix then proposed that the Legislature should buy a greater sized location for a new hospital. Over time, new mental hospitals were constructed in various cities including Bolivar, Knoxville, and Murfreesboro. With the constant development over time, Tennessee has created various positive treatment systems for the mentally ill and they are constantly
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