I do not believe that the mentally ill belong in prison. People with mental illness face many problems in society today from being neglected by their own families to the government itself to being imprisoned because people believe that they don’t deserve to be in the society. Illness requires patience, medication and care not neglect.
Pushing them away in the name that they are causing problems in society is unfair because we should embrace them and make sure that they receive adequate care and love. According to a critical story that was future in the New York Times it showed that a large number of innocent mental ill individuals have been imprisoned by the administration just because they are said to be dangerous to the citizens.
Mayor Bill De Blasio and Joseph Ponte who is his correctional commissioner have come to find a system which has the highest number of mentally ill people. Research by (Testa 405) has shown that 40% of the 12,00o inmates in a jail are mentally ill. This means that many people prefer to send their family members into prison instead of finding time to care for them because they are considered to take too much time and are expensive to care for and maintain them.
People who are mentally ill have said that they are being stigmatized and they are highly discriminated because of their mental illness. This discrimination and stigmatization have pushed them into having many problems when it comes to associating with other people in society.
It is even hard for them to recover well because they are imprisoned and can’t get enough and the right medical facilities for their problems. I believe that people who are mentally ill should not be imprisoned but instead being taken into a mental rehabilitation facility that will help them recover well and have adequate care like any other citizens.
Imprisoning someone who is mentally ill is against the constitution because they are innocent and have not done anything wrong in the society that they deserve a jail term. Everyone has freedom of movements and the freedom to have affordable and reliable health care. This means that when you jail a mentally ill person, you will definitely be denying them their freedom of movements and the freedom to have adequate care. The government should make sure that they work hard and ensure all the mentally ill are taken care of.
The ministry of health should put aside some funds that can be used by the mentally used people so that it can improve their living conditions because most of them have been neglected and been sent away from home hence making it hard for them to live in the community. Some of them cannot access food and other basic needs like shelter and that is why many of them die on the streets without the family or even the government to protect them from external problems (Galanek & Joseph 120).
The government should build institutions which are friendly and made specifically to be a home for the mentally ill people so that they can access care, shelter, food and other basic needs that they lack. Such institutions will ensure that the mentally ill persons are not being imprisoned by the administration responsible or by their own families. Some families believe that by imprisoning them, they will be helping them because of shelter but that is wrong because it will be torturing them psychologically and it will be very hard for them to get well mentally because they will be mentally tortured.
Imprisoning People with Mental Illness
By far most of the people are not vicious offenders a great many people in prisons are have not yet gone to preliminary, so they are not yet sentenced for a wrongdoing. The rest are serving a short sentence for minor violations.
Once in prison, numerous people don’t get the treatment they need and wind up deteriorating, worse. They remain longer than their partners without psychological sickness. They are in danger of exploitation and frequently their psychological wellness conditions deteriorate.
NAMI’s Stand
Helping individuals escape imprison and into treatment is the best need for us. NAMI trusts that everybody ought to approach a full exhibit of emotional well-being administrations and backings in his or her networks to help avoid collaborations with police. These backings ought to incorporate treatment for medication and liquor utilize conditions, and backings like lodging, training, bolstered business and companion and family bolster (Rossler 1250).
On the off chance that people do go to the consideration of law requirement, networks ought to make choices to redirect them to treatment and administrations before, a great many arrests and at all focus in the equity framework. At the point when people are in prison, they ought to approach required prescription and support, ought to be agreed to accept wellbeing inclusion if conceivable and ought to get help arranging their discharge to guarantee they get back on track.
The Function of NAMI
Is one of the most important companies in the world today that is struggling to ensure that people with disability are having their equal rights like any other citizens in the nation. It ensures that people with disability do not go through torture or imprisonment just because they are stereotyped to be bad and a nascence to the community.
The Stepping Up Initiative
NAMI is an accomplice in The Stepping up Initiative, an energizing national crusade to test provinces to lessen the number of individuals with psychological instability in prisons. NAMI joins other national associations approaching districts and networks across the nation to address this issue.
Emergency Intervention Teams (CIT) and Other Local Programs
NAMI Affiliates around the nation join forces with neighborhood law requirement on emergency mediation group (CIT) projects to enable police to perceive a psychological well-being issue and get individuals to treatment. We likewise chip away at an assortment of prison redirection programs, reentry programs, and give instruction and support to people and families in danger of inclusion it the equity framework (Winkler et al 425).
This populace is in excess of four times more inclined to be captured than different grown-ups and represents about 20 percent of the US jail populace. Once in a correctional facility, they frequently hold up months or longer to get fitting treatment.
Diverse ways to deal with the location the issue have been attempted and tried in urban areas the nation over, however with blended outcomes.
‘On the off chance that we want to fix the problem, we have to understand it.’ Moreover, the model which relies on dynamic coordinated effort and shared critical thinking between emotional well-being and criminal equity frameworks—has demonstrated to keep rationally sick people in treatment twice the length of the investigation’s correlation program.
In a three-year, randomized-control think about led by clinical analysts at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s bureau of psychiatry, the Rochester Forensic Assertive Community Treatment display (R-FACT) withstood thorough examination and now holds guarantee for urban areas over the United States. The investigation shows up in the diary Psychiatric Services.
‘Our examination recommends that it’s conceivable to anticipate criminal recidivism among individuals with even the most serious psychological instabilities and generous criminal accounts,’ says think about chief specialist J. Steven (Testa 405), educator of psychiatry. ‘We found that by consolidating the ability of emotional wellness and criminal equity experts unquestionably, we can advance both individual well-being and open security.’
R-FACT ‘advances persistent commitment in treatment and network residency through a coordinated effort with criminal equity accomplices. Such endeavors will probably have huge gainful downstream impacts for this populace,’ says co-agent and scientific specialist Robert L. Weisman.
The pattern of rationally sick people moping in jails has agreed with the scaling back of US mental doctor’s facilities during the 1980s, look into shows. The Rochester Psychiatric Center, for instance, once housed upwards of 3,000 patients, yet serves just around 100 today.
For a long time, analysts trusted the answer for the high rate of detainment among the rationally sick (frequently including similar people with rehashed imprisonments) was just to give better emotional wellness treatment.
Specialists created outreach programs staffed with socially different mental clinicians, social laborers, and caseworkers who made ‘house calls.’
These sorts of projects turned out to be compelling at lessening hospitalizations, however not criminal inclusion.
A discussion that a criminologist gave at a national gathering made (Testa 405) divert his energies toward another path. His consideration moved in the direction of comprehension the different and novel ‘criminogenic chance components’ of rationally sick people, for example, standoffish identity, criminal reasoning, social help for wrongdoing, and substance misuse—combined with mental issues like psychosis, distrustfulness, psychological debilitation, and injury—and how this blend makes individuals more powerless and less receptive to standard remedial mediation.
‘In the event that we need to settle the issue, we need to comprehend it,’ (Testa 405) says. ‘Individuals with serious psychological maladjustment have significantly higher rates of criminogenic chance elements, alongside different issues that influence how they identify with others. The way to averting recidivism is to draw in these people in particular intercessions that objective the things driving their association with the criminal equity framework.’
Be that as it may, connecting with people in treatment—particularly those safe or frightful of it is the hardest part, (Testa 405) says.
The Rochester FACT model is a consequence of quite a long while of research, experimentation, various investigations, and center gatherings. The program utilizes legitimate use to draw in people in emotional well-being treatment that methodically focuses on their criminogenic hazard factors.
Getting judges, legal counselors, post-trial agents, and other criminal equity experts to ‘purchase in’ to the program is vital.
‘Lawful use isn’t tied in with making dangers to drive consistency, or basically announcing infractions,’ (Testa 405) says. ‘It’s about the proper, aware utilization of lawful expert to manage individuals toward commitment.
‘It likewise requires getting psychological well-being and criminal equity experts to issue settle together, and to think about helpful options in contrast to discipline. Our customers are people who feel dampened and disheartened, they are at their most reduced point, and they require a greater number of remunerations than approvals.’
In conclusion, it is very true that the mentally ill persons have been stigmatized in society and which it has led them to face many problems like being discriminated and being neglected by society. Because of the neglect, they have been imprisoned and even some of them have decided to go to prison willingly because of the problems that they face in the society like lack of their basic needs like shelter, food and even health care.
It is very essential that a mentally ill person should access care and medication just like any other sick person and neglecting them will not help but make it hard for them to survive. If the government is compelled to send the mentally ill person into the prison, it should then ensure that they receive the best care in the prisons and the prison’s health care system should be improved in a way that it can accommodate the mentally ill persons.
The people in our society today are ignorant and that is the reason why they are neglecting and discriminating the mentally ill persons. The government should ensure that workshops are carried out so that they can be able to educate and let the people know on the importance of providing care to the mentally ill persons and not taking them into prisons. It is also essential that everyone gets to know that the mentally ill person is not dangerous and they do not belong to the prison.
Work Сited
- Testa, Megan. ‘Imprisonment of the mentally ill: A call for diversion to the community mental health system.’ Alb. Gov’t L. Rev. 8 (2015): 405.
- Winkler, Petr, et al. ‘Deinstitutionalised patients, homelessness and imprisonment: systematic review.’ The British Journal of Psychiatry 208.5 (2016): 421-428.
- Rössler, Wulf. ‘The stigma of mental disorders: A millennia‐long history of social exclusion and prejudices.’ EMBO reports17.9 (2016): 1250-1253.
- Galanek, Joseph D. ‘Correctional officers and the incarcerated mentally ill: Responses to psychiatric illness in prison.’ Medical anthropology quarterly 29.1 (2015): 116-136.
