News (Media Awareness Project) - US FL: Editorial: Jailing The Mentally Ill |
| Title: | US FL: Editorial: Jailing The Mentally Ill |
| Published On: | 2003-10-04 |
| Source: | Ledger, The (FL) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-01-19 10:37:44 |
JAILING THE MENTALLY ILL
Americans like to consider themselves a compassionate people. But how is it
possible to react with anything but collective shame to the disclosure that
20 percent of the inmates and prisoners in the nation's jails and prisons
are mentally ill?
That report, by Human Rights Watch, at least helps explain why America has
one of the largest prison populations in the world. It's not because we are
a more lawless society than other nations, or that we are even more bullish
on punishment than the rest of the world.
Partially, it's because we have, by default, decided that it is easier and
cheaper to keep our mentally ill in penal institutions than in mental
health facilities. How else to explain the fact that there are 300,000
million people with mental health problems behind bars, but just 80,000
mental patients in hospitals designed to treat emotional problems?
That prisons and jails have become de facto asylums puts an enormous strain
on correctional officers, police, prosecutors, judges and others in the
criminaljustice system who are ill-prepared to handle mental health
problems. Emotionally troubled inmates, for instance, are much more
inclined to cause disciplinary problems behind bars.
For the most part, correctional officers have no alternative but to place
such disciplinary cases in solitary confinement. And enforced solitude only
tends to feed and aggravate the mentally ill. Moreover, very few
correctional institutions have programs or specially trained staff to
handle mentally ill inmates.
That our prisons have become modern day bedlams is not only America's
shame, it is a national scandal. Our criminal justice system has become
America's largest mental health agency. That's a perversion of both justice
and rational health-care policy.
Correction An editorial Tuesday said the number of U.S. prisoners with
mental health problems was 2.1 million. The number listed in a Human Rights
Watch report is more than 300,000. The entire prison and jail population in
the U.S. is about 2.1 million.
Americans like to consider themselves a compassionate people. But how is it
possible to react with anything but collective shame to the disclosure that
20 percent of the inmates and prisoners in the nation's jails and prisons
are mentally ill?
That report, by Human Rights Watch, at least helps explain why America has
one of the largest prison populations in the world. It's not because we are
a more lawless society than other nations, or that we are even more bullish
on punishment than the rest of the world.
Partially, it's because we have, by default, decided that it is easier and
cheaper to keep our mentally ill in penal institutions than in mental
health facilities. How else to explain the fact that there are 300,000
million people with mental health problems behind bars, but just 80,000
mental patients in hospitals designed to treat emotional problems?
That prisons and jails have become de facto asylums puts an enormous strain
on correctional officers, police, prosecutors, judges and others in the
criminaljustice system who are ill-prepared to handle mental health
problems. Emotionally troubled inmates, for instance, are much more
inclined to cause disciplinary problems behind bars.
For the most part, correctional officers have no alternative but to place
such disciplinary cases in solitary confinement. And enforced solitude only
tends to feed and aggravate the mentally ill. Moreover, very few
correctional institutions have programs or specially trained staff to
handle mentally ill inmates.
That our prisons have become modern day bedlams is not only America's
shame, it is a national scandal. Our criminal justice system has become
America's largest mental health agency. That's a perversion of both justice
and rational health-care policy.
Correction An editorial Tuesday said the number of U.S. prisoners with
mental health problems was 2.1 million. The number listed in a Human Rights
Watch report is more than 300,000. The entire prison and jail population in
the U.S. is about 2.1 million.
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