Mental Illness in Prisons (Health, Medicine, Nursing Research Paper)

Mental Illness in Prisons
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Mental Illness in Prisons
Mental illness is a condition that can have many forms of presenting itself. According to (WHO 2019), it is characterized by a combination of abnormal thoughts, perceptions, emotions, behavior, and relationships with others. There are a lot of factors that can contribute to mental illness. Genetics, environment, lifestyle choices like alcohol and drug abuse and traumatic life events can develop a mental health disorder. All these start as mental stress that can eventually interfere with basic brain functioning resulting in a condition.
There are various mental illness manifestations like depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis, and even dementia. Mental illness is prevalent in all social groups of people, with one out of every five people in the population being diagnosed with a mental illness. Because of how untreated mental illness can impair someone's thoughts and judgment, there are numerous criminal cases linked to mental illness.
It has been repeatedly reported that there is an association between some mental conditions and increases criminal behavior. For example, out of 100 murderers, 29% would have been diagnosed with psychosis, 21% with schizophrenia, 8% with affective disorders, while the remaining 35% goes to substance abuse (Florez, 2009). While there are mental conditions that their behavioral manifestation is primarily criminal offenses such as Paraphilia, Pyromania, and Kleptomania, it is not always that all mental disorders manifest in criminal behavior. This paper will focus on schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and PTSD, affecting those who have been convicted and are serving their jail terms.
Schizophrenia
This is a severe mental disorder characterized by distortions in thinking, perception, emotions, and mood, sometimes language, sense of self, and behavior in the affected person. Sometimes, persons who have schizophrenia may have psychotic experiences, which include hallucinations and delusions. People experiencing hallucinations will report hearing, seeing, and feeling non-existent things. In contrast, those reporting delusions will experience false beliefs and strong suspicions even when presented with evidence to the contrary. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 20 million people worldwide have Schizophrenia (WHO, 2019). Some of these people are in prisons for having committed crimes due to their distorted thoughts. Others have developed the conditions behind bars.
(Morin, 2020) indicates that the American Psychological Association estimates that between 10 and 25% of inmates have a severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia. These statistics are relatively high to be ignored, and some of the mental illnesses are relatively easily distinguishable from normal behavior. The most common symptoms of schizophrenia are usually hallucinations, delusions, self-neglect, abnormal behavior including mumbling to self or talking to imaginary people, incoherence, and disorganized speech. Disturbed emotions with a disconnect in body language and sometimes lack of empathy are also potential symptoms. When a...