Mental Illness Among Prisons And The United States

If a society is to be judged how it treats its most disadvantaged members, then the United States is in a very lowly state of affairs. The United States currently incarcerates over 356,000 individuals diagnosed with some form of mental illness. This is ten-fold the number of people receiving treatment in psychiatric hospitals, around 35,000 (Frances). Leaving us with the question, when did suffering from a mental illness become a crime worthy of incarceration? Doubt no longer remains as to if the this system is broken, as indicated by recent report from the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs’ Association, which after surveying sheriffs and prison administrators, concluded on three main points. Mental illness among prison populations are growing in numbers as well as severity, prison and jail officers feel compelled to supply a hospital level treatment regimen, and that the problem originates in the mediocre aftercare provided for those who are released accompa nied by the continual closure of state psychiatric centers (Felthous). What must be asked now is how does one mend a system on the edge of crisis. There are many propositions on how this may be done, but they can be summed up into the following strategies: the creation of resources to intervene before situations ever become critical, newer and better training of first responders, EMTs, and police officers in mental health emergencies, reformation in the way judges sentence those suffering fromShow MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Crime And Mental Illness1245 Words   |  5 PagesTypically, mental conditions affect the cognitive and emotional aspects of a person. 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