Prisons are not Adequate Providers of Mental Health Services

  I will always remember when I first learned about mental illness and the affects it has on the individual suffering with it. I was in the 7^th grade and was utterly fascinated to learn about the types of illnesses, but yet so saddened to hear about the treatment they receive. After learning I had friends and family members who suffered from mental health issues, I had a strong urge to become an advocate about emotional health. I try to keep myself educated on pressing issues which deal with mental health and treatment. Therefore, I was extremely upset to learn about the mentally ill being placed in prisons.

Prison is not a mental health facility, so the individuals who suffer with these problems do not belong there. According to Carolyn Zezima’s (2020) article titled “Incarcerated with Mental Illness”,  at least more than two million people with mental health issues are arrested yearly, and that many of the ill may stay in jail longer than someone who does not have a mental illness. “Roughly 9% of the population (more than 210,000 individuals) experiences serious mental illnesses including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression and fewer than 13% of these individuals receive care in the public mental health system” (Zezima, para. 4). This is extremely disheartening to learn about, especially since prisons seem to contain more people with poor emotional states than psychiatric facilities do. “Experts say jails and prisons have become the nation’s largest psychiatric facilities” (Zezima, para. 1). Furthermore, the problem with the mentally ill being incarcerated deals with treatments. These individuals either receive poor treatment, or no treatment at all. 

I remember reading an article in a social problems class I took at the college I transferred from, and this article described about penitentiaries using solitary confinement as a punishment. This is when they isolate the prisoners from others, and it is honestly horrible, especially for persons suffering from serious mentally illness. The way solitary confinement affects persons with mentally illness are very severe. According to Teddy Basham-Witherington’s article “Class Action Hero: Denied Mental Health Care, Patrice Makes a Stand for Human Rights”, Patrice Daniels was a mentally ill inmate, and he was placed in solitary confinement many times. Daniels discusses how he “feared his own mind” as his symptoms worsened, and even got charged for illegal contraband when he harmed himself (Basham-Washington, 2018). This honestly makes me really mad when I read about this because Daniels was crying for help, but the guards completely ignored him. Daniels’ illness continued to go untreated as he was constantly denied treatment by the Illinois Department of Corrections (Basham-Washington, 2018). Being denied treatment is wrong on numerous levels, and is honestly a violation of human rights. Therefore, the mentally ill do not belong in prisons.

Moreover, I feel that in order to address this problem is to advocate for the mentally ill. I feel that more people need to actually educate themselves on mental illness. There are people in this world that associate mental illness with being violent, and the shootings that have occurred in the past have not helped resolve this issue. This is why people need to get rid of that stigma and realize that not everyone who suffers from an emotional problem is “violent” or “crazy”. In addition, a huge number of the homeless population deal with poor mental states and go untreated. So, I believe that there needs to be better funding for mental health facilities and maybe better funding could grant easier access to treatment for these individuals.

References

Basham-Witherington, T. (2018, October 05). Class Action Hero: Denied Mental Health Care, 

     Patrice Makes A Stand for Human Rights. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from 

     https://www.impactfund.org/social-justice-blog/ patrice? 

     gclid=Cj0KCQjwk8b7BRCaARIsAARRTL4wmQTSWHcMrYU8shnpH7m

     Q3Gf_NUfNT1NyjxdmU77TR8nRFenljJcaAs5PEALw_wcB

Zezima Carolyn Zezima, C. (2020, August 12). Incarcerated with Mental Illness: How to Reduce 

     the Number of People with Mental Health Issues in Prison. Retrieved September 29, 2020, 

     from https://www.psycom.net/how-to-reduce-mental-illness-in-prisons

I find it a nightmarish wonder that we are still using solitary confinement with prisoners. The “skilled tormenters” of Illinois are still applying tortures that we have known do no good since the 1820s!

From my cousin George Ives’ book about penal methods written by him over 110 years ago:

...Thus the new torture was begun; but the “reformers” reached a deeper level of horror when in 1818 the legislature of Pennsylvania resolved to construct a penitentiary for enforcing solitary confinement without even work ! At another prison a trial of solitary confinement was made upon eighty convicts. In 1822 they were shut up for ten months each in a little cell 7 feet long by 3-1/2 feet broad, and were not allowed to leave it at any time or for any purpose. ...

...But the new torture, solitary confinement, was never meant to be applied that way, and never was by the skilled tormentors. In the experiments just glanced at, the zeal of the too ardent disciples of “discipline” defeated their object. Death and insanity were so wholesale and universal that no amount of figures and “philanthropy” could explain staring facts out of the way....