Social Disorganization Theory Paper

What is left is that we have many citizens who are mentally ill and are not receiving treatment. However the patients who are able to receive treatment are only able to have some treatment covered. Health insurers are responsible for covering the immensely large cost of substantial treatment, a mixture of medication and therapy; since therapy is highly priced, less reliable, and time consuming; patients typically do not receive treatment for therapy. Health insurers would much rather cover medication because it is cheaper, it heals patients faster, and it is more reliable than therapy. However, medication is not made to heal, but to only coax symptoms of a mental illness (Sandberg).

Research studies have suggested that individuals suffering from mental disorders are at a high risk of committing crime and are also considered a threat to society (increases moral panic) and themselves. Gregory (2004) argues that this vulnerability and moral panic comes after the closing of long-stay psychiatric institutions which provided mental health care and support to patients with mental disorders and patients were moved to community care during the regime of the Conservative government in the 1980s.

Mental illness refers to all diagnosable mental disorders defined as “health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood or behavior (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning.” (Williams & Torrens, 2008, p. 221) With one in every five American adults experiencing mental illness, the resulting economic burden exceeds $300 billion per year to include approximately $100 billion in direct health care expenditures, $24 billion in disability benefits, and $193 billion in lost earnings. (Insel, 2008) This estimate is conservative as it excludes the components of incarceration, homelessness, comorbid conditions, early mortality and the incalculable costs to families that absorb much of the financial and emotional burdens of these illnesses. Despite the fact mental illness contributes over 6% to the nation’s health care spending; the United States (U.S.) mental health system has historically lacked integration with physical medicine and public policy support. (Insel, 2008)

Over the past few decades, many researches have strived to test and explain the correlation between violence and crime and mental illness. Moore and Hiday (2006) assert that up 22% of inmates has a mental illness, sometimes containing more mental illness patients than many psychiatric units. Due to these statistics it is evident how important it is to understand the causes of the correlations between crime and violence and mental disorders. This proposal wishes to explain and understand the possible correlation and the reasons for such correlation between mental health illnesses and violence and crime. Further research to test

Mental health issues, a shadowed problem in the U.S, has affected millions across the nation. In the United States, there are many problems with its mental health service. People with mental disorders are in an inferior area with hospitals being shut down, they usually end up homeless, and sometimes they even end up in prison. Consequently, the U.S pays a large amount of money to go into holding these prisoners who could have been in mental hospitals. In addition to mental hospitals being closed, some people do not receive treatment or help towards their problems.

This is not to suggest that our standards for mental health have remained stagnant. 40 years ago, a person with schizophrenia would likely have been jailed or institutionalized, with the condition blamed on the cold treatment of the person’s mother. Today, thanks to improved ethics and medical care, that same person might well be a functioning member of society. But these advancements do not excuse the fact that, as of 2017, people with mental illness are disproportionately likely to be homeless, in prison, or unemployed (NCH

A man freezes to death in the early hours of the day, a young woman overdoses in a alleyway, a vulnerable teenager struggles to find food. These stories all have something in common which fuels their suffering: an untreated mental illness. As time goes on, the number of people with mental disorders increases; consequently, the long-term effects are becoming more apparent. America is particularly notable for its lack of accessibility in comparison to other nations, despite studies showing the benefits otherwise. With the psychiatric industry itself to blame, a minute amount of people actually receive the treatment they badly need to live. Social detriment follows mental decline in a traceable pattern: untreated mental illness in society presents

Individuals with mental illness are a high risk population that are often targets of violence and discrimination. Individuals with mental illness are mostly vulnerable to violent crimes such as rape, assault, robbery and murder. The major reason for the susceptibility to violent crimes is the impairment of cognitive functions, which is a common symptom of mental illness. The symptoms related to mental illness including: poor problems solving skills and confused thought processes can threaten their ability to identify dangerous situations and protect themselves. In addition, individuals with mental illnesses often have underlying problems such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and substance abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to get a better understanding of mental illness and how it coincides with the criminal justice system. As we know, mental illness has been a huge issue in the criminal justice system, the issue has predominately been ignored with only attention being drawn to this problem when a high-profile case makes the news. Therein lies the problem, we have no idea how to solve the issue of the rampant mentally ill being repeat offenders in the criminal justice system, often solutions will be made to help correct the issue, but these “solutions” tend to be ineffective and only temporary. Furthermore, what can be said of the mentally ill being constantly in and out of the criminal justice system is that they don’t recognize themselves as being mentally ill and therefore tend to forgo taking their medications once they are released from prison, consequently this creates a never-ending cycle of release, committed crime while off meds, and

Senator Creigh Deeds story is just one of many that end in tragedy because of a mental health system that has failed. While the major proportion of people living with mental illness are not violent, they can become a victim of violence. According to the latest statistics from the American Psychological Association one in five adults has a diagnosable mental disorder, one in twenty-four has a serious mental disorder (SMI), and people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent that people without mental illness (Association, American Psychiatric, 2016). Untreated mental health care is characteristic of the violent crimes that we see happening today. Some of the reasons behind these untreated individuals are the unmet needs of people not having a financial means to pay for services, lack of insurance, knowledge about how to access care, embarrassment about having the need for services, and those that needed care but experienced delays in accessing care (Jones et al., 2014).

Americans suffer from various types of mental illness and mental health problems, such as social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, drug addiction, and personality disorders. Over a 12-month period, 27 percent of adults in the U.S. will experience some sort of mental health disorder, making the U.S. the country with the highest prevalence. Many Americans are going by their daily routines without being treated when suffering from a mental health illness. Homelessness people with untreated psychiatric illnesses comprise 250,000 people, of the total homeless population. The quality of life for these individuals is terrible. Many are victimized regularly and are looked down. Because of not being properly treated episodes of violence arises,

Millions of Americans suffer from a mental illness throughout the years, and a majority of them are not getting an adequate treatment. Individuals who experience a mental illness are found in populations such as the homeless and jails. Between one-fourth and one-third of the homeless population suffers from a serious mental illness (Folsom, Hawthorne, Lindamer, Gilmer, Bailey, Golshan, Garcia, Unutzer, Hough, Jeste, 2005) and at least 16 percent of inmates in jails and prisons suffer from a mental illness (treatment advocacy center 2010). The care for the mentally ill in mental institutions has been significantly cut down throughout the passing years.

Mental health issues, a shadowed problem in the U.S, has affected millions across the nation. In the United States there are many problems with its mental health service. People with mental disorders are in an inferior area with hospitals being shut down, they usually end up homeless, and sometimes they even end up in prison. Consequently, the U.S pays a large amount of money to go into holding these prisoners who could have been in mental hospitals. In addition to mental hospitals being closed, some people do not receive treatment or help towards their problems.

In the United States, mental illness is a topic that is severely neglected. Many individuals who suffer from illnesses including, but not limited to, schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder are routinely ignored and often do not receive the treatment needed for them to lead functional lives. According to Richard Frank and Sherry Glied, Harvard Medical School professors and co-authors, the severely mentally ill are “among the most gravely disadvantaged and stigmatized groups in the United States” (3). According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), those who are fortunate enough to have family or friends that aid them in seeking help, or those who recognize themselves that they need help and seek it on their own, often have a lot of trouble finding long-term services that can do more for them than simply provide medication

As mentioned by Howitt (2015), a mental illness can be defined as ‘a variety of psychological conditions in which there is a characteristic disabling and distressing impairment in some aspect of the psychological functioning of the individual.’ However, not all mental illnesses are found to be at risk of violent offending. Such illnesses as anxiety and depression are found to be less violent than mental health problems such as bipolar and schizophrenia, both of which will be included in the subset of mental health problems recognised as violent for the purpose of this essay. The relationship that has been identified between mental illness and crime has the ability to be misconceived through misclassification of violent mentally ill offenders and a variety of factors which have the ability to cloud the evidence of the