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Mental Illness In Prisons

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Mental Illness In Prisons
The Mental Health Issue

People suffering with mental illnesses have to endure many hardships that most of society is unaware of. Medication, treatment and proper care for those with extreme mental disorders , including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, can often times be overlooked. Along with the mentally ill, families must go through extreme costs and legal difficulties to be able to provide for them. Ever since the 1800’s, society has been unable to provide and deal with mentally ill citizens in an appropriate manner. Many have been thrown in jails. Few may understand that mental diseases affect millions across the U.S, but everyone needs to understand how costly it is to ignore these issues. Some would agree to continue to completely …show more content…
Those with a mental disorder, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia experience mental breaks in their mind. These breaks can cause the person to leave their right state of mind and commit crimes they are unaware of. This leads to the overflowing population of mental patients locked away in prisons. The article “Mental Illness is No Crime” (Gingrich) explains, “There are more mentally ill patients in prisons than in psychiatric hospitals.” According to the article, over 2 million are arrested annually. To fund these patients, citizens’ tax dollars are being pooled into the prison systems. U.S citizens may not care that mental patients ae being locked away because it improves overall public safety and reduces crime, but when they realize that it is their tax dollars paying for the mentally ill, they may begin to care. Locking these mental patients away is not the ideal solution to the crimes they commit while they aren’t in their right state of …show more content…
The article “Mentally Ill Prisoners” (America) states that 200,00 men and 30000 women take up America’s prisons and receive terrible treatment. Anyone who is locked away in a prison for a long period of time would feel a little crazy. Locking someone away who is already insane just worsens their condition. The novel Crazy (Earley) explains that the mental health ward in Miami prisons were kept at freezing temperatures. Patients were barely clothed, and completely isolated. This barrier from social contact can be disastrous for anyone’s health, let alone someone with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. It is clear that the prisons do not care about their patients mental and physical stability, even if it is a prisoner with a severe mental disorder. There is no way any of these prisoners’ conditions could improve in a prison environment. This will just continue with the expensive, endless process of containing mentally ill people in
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