Mentally Ill Should Not Go To Prison

Words: 949

Pages: 4

Open Document

Today our largest mental hospitals are our local prisons. A few decades ago we started a new type of segregation. This segregation is hidden from most of the population and lives behind the prison walls. This segregation is known as the segregation of the sick. Instead of putting a mentally ill person in a safe environment to get further treatment, we throw them in a prison and hope for the best. The mentally ill should be placed in a mental health facility instead of going to prison. Mentally ill shouldn’t go to prison because because the safety for themselves and others are being jeopardized, they won’t receive proper treatment plans, and it isn’t cost efficient.

Recently, Hillary Clinton made a worldwide statement about the imprisonment issues in the United States. "It's a stark fact that the United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world's total prison population. The numbers today are much higher than they were 30, 40 years ago, despite the fact that crime is at historic lows" (Lee). The sad truth behind the rising numbers in the prison population is due to the failure to …show more content…
In any prison it isn’t unusual to find it to be damp, dark, and sad place. These conditions are an easy trigger for anyone, especially for someone who doesn’t know how to cope properly. For someone who is already mentally ill, these conditions will set them off at a much quicker rate. Another problem leading up to safety hazards is the amount of inmates. Today, overcrowding in prison cells are normal. As the inmate number increases, the chance for someone to get hurt also increases. The amount of people can easily make a mentally ill inmate anxious. Once a person is anxious they begin to shut down. Shutting down can make someone harm themselves or another

Frontline Episode The New Asylums

into the crisis mentally ill inmates face in the psychiatric ward in Ohio state prisons. The episode shows us the conditions and every day lives of mentally ill patients in Ohio state prisons, and explains how these inmates got to this point. It appeared that most of these prisoners should have been patients in an institute of some sort, out in society, but unfortunately due to whatever circumstances they ended up in prison. According to the episode, most of the inmates end up in prison due to them not…

Words 1177 - Pages 5

Essay On Mentally Ill Offenders Should Not Be Diverted From Incarceration

Mentally Ill Offenders Should Not Be Diverted from Incarceration Tripp Wolter and Tyler Dodson University of Texas at Tyler Not all offenders who are mentally ill should be able to use their illness as an excuse for the crimes they have committed, and while they are serving a prison sentence, they can receive treatment for their condition rather than representing a threat to their community. Many of the mentally ill become homeless due to not being able to secure funds for housing…

Words 1664 - Pages 7

Pros And Cons Of The Insanity Plea

that makes a lampshade out of a human face? Both of these crimes were committed by a known serial killer Ed Gein (Colby). While committing these serious offenses, one might wonder if the people who do these actions are mentally insane. Therefore, if they are insane or mentally ill, should they be blamed for their actions? If not, the alternative is the insanity plea. The insanity plea is a defendant claiming the reasoning for their actions is due to their mental state and the time of the felony (Stewart)…

Words 1115 - Pages 5

Deinstitutionalization: Mental Disorder and Bridgeview Manor Essay

Deinstitutionalization People with mental illnesses often get themselves in troubling situations that leave them puzzled to why they are there and what they can do different next time. Such places can be a prison, a place not suitable for someone with a mental illness. Prisons are made for people that have not followed the rules of society on their own free will and decided to act in a way that can potentially hurt other people. People with mental illnesses although might do something that is against…

Words 1412 - Pages 6

Mentally Ill And Incarceration Essay

The War on the Mentally Ill and Incarceration Listening to any of the current 2016 Presidential debates, it is blatant that the American people have many concerns of the mentally ill and incarceration. It goes unnoticed that our mental health care system is just another system that has failed the American people. As Hillary Clinton once stated, “We need a true national debate about how to reduce our prison population while keeping our communities safe." Since our incarceration facilities have a…

Words 1399 - Pages 6

Deinstitutionalized Offenders In The Prison System

Our prison systems today are in the mists of overcrowding offenders as the years go on. Offenders of different kind are incarcerated in the prison system, (elderly, disabled, young, etc.) and went through the arresting process; however with the mentally ill offenders, they go through the same process but are forgotten in the system not getting the treatment they actually need rather than being confined. Since the deinstitutionalization of 1950, asylums had closed down and leaving their patients…

Words 525 - Pages 3

Research Paper On Mentally Ill

people. There are just as many mentally ill people as there are “sane” people. This seems to be the only way to keep our communities safe from danger in our world today. Between two and four million individuals are severely mentally ill in the United States...(Steinwachs).Instead of trying to lend a helping hand to conduct research and try to get a solution to the problems that the mentally ill face, people rather judge and lock them up in insane asylums and prison bars. This is simply not true,…

Words 1113 - Pages 5

Mental Illness In Prisons

In 2006, there were estimated to be 705,600 mentally ill inmates in state prisons, 78,000 in federal prisons and 47,900 in local jails (NIC). Most inmates suffer from social anxiety disorders or depression. There are three times more people in prisons with mental health problems than in actual hospitals (News). However, this is a problem for various reasons, two being that prisons cannot afford the proper medications and treatment as well as that prisons are not well enough equipped to handle these…

Words 1331 - Pages 6

Solitary Confinement

Reform and self-improvement programs are often denied to solitary confinement inmates, causing high recidivism rates. It is for this reason that the use of long periods of solitary confinement on juveniles and adults should be abolished because it is damaging to the psyche and negatively impacts reintegration efforts upon release. The practice of solitary confinement has an extensive, yet irregular history dating back almost 200 years ago. The idea of solitary confinement…

Words 2454 - Pages 10

Supermax Prisons

are held in solitary confinement has sky rocketed. State and federal prisons all have solitary confinement. Therefore, when an inmate acts out and tries to attack other inmates, and officers then they are put into an individual cell and are isolated from other individuals. One senator had said that the expansion of the use of solitary confinement is an issue. During this discussion about solitary confinement and super max prisons NPR had several speakers Laura Sullivan, Walter Dickey, and guest speakers…

Words 1206 - Pages 5