Involuntary Psychiatric Commitment Chapter 15 Summary

In the video, “The New Asylums”, it demonstrated how deinstitutionalization has left thousands of mentally ill patients in the hands of the prison system. As the mental health hospitals closed down, the police department and prison system has become responsible for the mentally ill people that are on the streets. There was a firm point made about the release of mentally ill patients- “When hundreds of thousands of mentally ill are released, they do not magically become healthy. They went to the streets, became homeless, and turned to a system that cannot say no.” The video also stated that today, there are nearly 500,000 mentally ill people being held in jails and prisons throughout the country. Furthermore, there was no safety net for those

In the book, Crazy, by Pete Earley, provides a detailed overview of the mental health system in the United States, as it presents a first hand narrative of Earley’s family journey through the system. The author’s major premise and arguments, in the book, is to highlight the history of mental health, navigation through the judicial system with mental illness, the bureaucracy and policies of hospitals, society views on human rights and client safety, and the impact on the individual, family, and community. The content suggests that human service workers and public health workers should extend their professional lens to advocate for change in the mental health system in the United States.

Mental illness can happen at any time in the lifetime of a person. The illness affects the mind and alters a person’s feelings, thinking and behavior hence a difficulty in functioning. A majority of mentally ill people live on the streets, commit crimes and are imprisoned instead of getting proper treatment at a mental health facility. Pete Earley’s Crazy: A Father’s Search through America’s Mental Health Madness points out the essence of educating the society about dealing with mentally ill people. Earley uses his son’s condition to emphasize on the need for medical treatment rather than the imprisonment of mentally ill people. He notes that the society cannot ignore the rights of the mentally ill in accessing treatment (Earley, 2006). Notably, the justice system ought to be reformed to help the mentally ill to live a normal life like any other person.

The documentary “The released” shared a very important and serious social issue, which is mental illness of prisoners. The film described the inside of the Ohio prison system as it resisted to provide care for prisoners that have mental health problems. The system there allowed prisoners to leave the jail and either go to a shelter or a residential treatment center, to get the health care they need. After the release, prisoners need to take their medications and keep track with a psychiatrist or a mental health care center. However, most of the prisoners didn’t do what is required, most of them didn’t keep up with their medications and end up by going back to jail. The reason of the release was to give them chance to recover by taking medications

Ultimately, involuntary commitment remains a complicated medically and ethically debated topic; one that creates a conflict and clear divide, between individuals who content that involuntary commitment results in vulnerable individuals with psychiatric illnesses being subjective to coercion and civil rights infringement, and those who believe, based on the principle of utility, that involuntary commitment is essential and integral to the safety of the those with psychiatric illnesses, as well as to society as a whole. Both sides offer empirical evidence, as well as moral support for why they believe involuntary commitment is either legally and morally acceptable, or ethically unacceptable, and thereby should be illegal. Regardless, infringing

Today, it seems almost incomprehensible that so many people with serious mental illnesses reside in prisons instead of receiving treatment. Over a century and a half ago, reform advocates like Dorothea Dix campaigned for prison reform, urging lawmakers to house the mentally ill in hospitals rather than in prisons. The efforts undertaken by Dix and other like-minded reformers were successful: from around 1870 to 1970, most of the United States’ mentally ill population was housed in hospitals rather than in prisons. Considering reformers made great strides in improving this situation over a century and a half ago. Granted, mental hospitals in the late 19th and early 20th century were often badly run and critically flawed, but rather than pushing for reform of these hospitals, many politicians lobbied for them to close their doors, switching instead to a community-based system for treating the mentally ill. Although deinstitutionalization was originally understood as a humane way to offer more suitable services to the mentally ill in community-based settings, some politicians seized upon it as a way to save money by shutting down institutions without providing any meaningful treatment alternatives. This callousness has created a one-way road to prison for massive numbers of impaired individuals and the inhumane warehousing of thousands of mentally ill people. Nevertheless, there are things that can be done to lower the rate mentally ill persons are being incarcerated. Such

Given the number of incarcerated inmates who suffer from some form of mental illness, there are growing concerns and questions in the medical field about treatment of the mentally ill in the prison system. When a person with a mental illness commits a crime or break the law, they are immediately taken to jail or sent off to prison instead of being evaluated and placed in a hospital or other mental health facility. “I have always wondered if the number of mentally ill inmates increased since deinstitutionalization” Since prison main focus is on the crimes inmates are incarcerated; the actual treatment needed for the mentally ill is secondary. Mentally ill prisoners on the surface may appear to be just difficult inmates depending on the

The theory of ‘deinstitutionalization’ began arising with the theory of providing more freedom to the mentally ill and less spending on full time care facilities. The widespread use of drugs to control the mentally ill in the 1900s led to a mass release of patients and an emptying of asylums. Outpatient Psychiatric Clinics were established. Case Law in the United States began to be generated to provide the mentally ill with greater rights. Shelton v. Tucker 1960 provided that the mentally ill should receive care in the “least restrictive alternative”, which is a practice still utilized. O’Connor v. Donaldson 1975 ruled that non-dangerous mental patients have the right to be treated or discharged if they have been institutionalized against their will. This new approached permitted the mass exodus

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that is characterized by a variety of symptoms and the disorganization of feeling and thought. It is an incurable disease whose causes are unknown, yet whose effects are mind and body crippling. (Young, 1988, p.13-14) This topic was chosen because it is interesting to study a disorder that worldwide, is viewed as a classic example of madness and insanity. Another reason of interest is because unlike many illnesses, schizophrenia doesn't have a noticeable pattern and its difficulty to be diagnosed as a disease makes the collection of statistics difficult. It is important to learn more about schizophrenia because a significant numbr of people are affected everyday

According to the Human Rights Watch report, "unnecessary, excessive, and even malicious force" is used prisons to control inmates with who suffer from psychotic episodes. The callous force used in prisons to control the mentally ill is continuously ignored with many ignorantly believe that a mental illness is a personality flaw. These people do not realize that these episodes are cause by a serious chemical imbalance in the brain. Clearly, prison is no place for the mentally ill because it is not treatment, “Vera Institute of Justice found… 2 million people are incarcerated each year with mental illness and more than 80% do not receive mental health treatment” (NAMI 1). To imprison a citizen who does not have the capacity to understand reality and neglect them proper treatment, would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Involuntary commitment of the mentally ill is surrounded by continual controversy especially since mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary are on the rise. Some argue that anyone with a mental illness should not be permitted to purchase a firearm. And their contenders claim such a measure would “infringe upon their civil rights” and would result in discrimination towards the mentally ill (Barusch, 2015, p. 236). Society is angry seeing so many mentally ill homeless in their communities. Some blame it on the strict regulations defining who can be Baker Acted, as the mentally ill cannot be involuntarily committed unless they are an imminent danger to themselves or others. Socioeconomically challenged families have no choice but to sit back and wait until their relative is so ill that they become a danger to themselves or society before they can get the care he/she needs. At that point, often learning the illness has reached chronic proportions and may take a lifetime to cure. They argue that the seriously disabled should be committed “regardless of their dangerousness” (Barusch, 2015, p. 244). It just seems

In reviewing mental illness in corrections, issues arise regarding the number of affected person’s receiving treatment in correctional settings and the care being provided. As the shift of treatment of the mentally ill moved from mental hospitals and institutions to community treatment facilities and correctional institutions, a marked increase of mentally ill offenders entered the correctional system. Advocates for the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill believed that the move would create a more independent lifestyle for the mentally ill while providing local access to treatment provided by community-based programs. (Health Affairs)

The tensions and controversies surrounding involuntary commitment of the mentally ill community is at it all times highest rate. What I mean there is so man people being diagnosed with the same mental illness. For example, as currently working in the school system I see man children being diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar or other mental illness. I am really surprise to see children diagnosed with these mental illnesses at an early age. I really think a lot have to do with the parenting skills. Do not get me wrong some do have a mental illness but, not most. A lot of parents just want the SSI check to benefit them. However, if a Doctor diagnosed them with a mental issue they should be committed in getting the right treatment. As stated in the

In recent years, the medical community has become more compassionate and understanding towards the mentally ill. In fact, mental illnesses are often treated humanely, like any physical disease. It would be nice if the world was always this understanding of these unseen diseases, but that is only wishful thinking. In the 1900s, the mentally ill were merely crammed into institutions and often forgotten about. Crownsville State Hospital, or the “Hospital for the Negro Insane,” was one of these institutions (Gordon). The hospital’s living conditions were beyond cramped, housing twenty-seven hundred patients in 1955, which was eight hundred patients over capacity of the building (Skloot). The conditions in the hospital were appalling, but the treatment of patients was even more nightmarish. Many of the patients in the hospital did not actually have mental illnesses. They were just African American people with issues such as hearing loss that made them unable to perform daily tasks by themselves. These patients, however, were the lucky ones. Many others with actual mental issues, such as epilepsy,

Thomas Szasz was one of the first psychiatrist to criticise psychiatry and argue about the concept of mental illness. His book “The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct” highlights the fundamental flaws in the administration of psychiatry, with the aim of challenging the medical characteristics of the concept of mental illness and the wrongful treatment of patients without their consent.