Paper On Mental Illness In Prison For Class TMR

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Mental Illness in Prison
Mental health conditions across the globe affect many people. The disorders are more prevalent among the prison populations as compared to the public. These illnesses impact the cognitive, volitional and emotional aspects and the personality functions of an individual. The high rates of people with mental conditions in the correctional facilities create a significant challenge since the prisons are not designed to take care of such illnesses. The prisons emphasize on punishment and deterrence rather than treatment. Consequently, most prisoners do not receive the necessary treatment or access to adequate services. There are many trainable mentally ill inmates in the correctional institutions that face numerous problems, including lack of treatment hence the need for better programs.
The numbers of the mentally ill in prisons are increasing. According to Daniel (406), prisons and jails are becoming the mental asylums: there are more mentally ill individuals in these facilities than in hospitals. The author attributes this to the lack of diversion programs at the criminal justice process front end to identify such cases. The estimated prevalence varies from one correctional facility to another, ranging from 7% to 90% (Arboleda-Florez 188). According to a report by Morgan et al. (37) in 2011, findings indicated that a quarter of the offenders in American correctional systems had some psychiatric condition. Prins (863) explains that gathering accurate data about the issue is critical for planning and implementation of policies and programs.
The mentally ill prisoners encounter many challenges in prisons. First, the lack of programs to educate them to learn about self-care places them in a disadvantaged position in prisons where bullying and other forms of violence are common. The needs of these individuals are neglected or no screening is done to identify their needs, hence no proper treatment is given. These offenders are more likely to be sexually and physically assaulted, financially exploited, commit suicide, and can be self-destructive than the other prisoners. The inadequate training of the prison administrators and other staff that interact with these inmates makes it difficult for them to improve. Cloyes (198) notes that different ideologies and among the prison officers and the mental health staff lead to differences in the understanding of mental illness and how to identify them.
The above discussion indicates the necessity...