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Shelby Lemmon
12/5/11
GWRTC 103
Michael Smith

Criminalization of Mental Illness

One in six U.S. prisoners is mentally ill (United States: Mentally Ill Mistreated in
Prison). This is a sad but true fact. The closings of mental hospitals over the past decades has
been dramatic and led to an increase in the number of mentally ill inmates in prisons. Imagine if
one of your loved ones was suffering from a mental illness but there was nowhere for them to get
treatment so they eventually ended up in prison for actions they did not have control over. This is
a reality for many people, and what makes it worse it that once in prison the loved ones are
unlikely to receive help for their illness. Prisons have become the nations fall back for treating
the mentally ill, which they are ill-equipped to do and cause more harm than good. As large as
this issue is, it is mind boggling that the government continues to allow it. It is something that is
being swept under the rug, but the problem will only increase more with time.
Incarcerating the mentally ill even occurs in fictional tales. The novel A Clockwork
Orange by Anthony Burgess revolves around a fifteen year old named Alex. He rapes, beats,
steals, and murders people for his own enjoyment. When he is eventually caught by the police no
one stops to consider if he could have a mental illness or to have him looked at by a psychiatrist.
He is sent to an overcrowded prison and treated the same as the other inmates and does not
receive any medication. He is sent into isolation after killing another inmate. Upon his release
from prison he is given nothing to help him. Alex isnt given any referrals to doctors, money, or

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taught how to become a member of society again. He has thoughts about violence often, and
subsequently he attempts suicide soon after. Unfortunately the parallels between what happen in
this fictional work and the real world are monumental. He was not properly diagnosed and did
not receive real help that could have actually benefited him.
Prisons were never meant to be mental health hospitals. However the three largest
psychiatric facilities in the United Stated are New York Citys Rikers Island, Los Angeles
County Jail, and Cook County Jail in Illinois (Stephey). Prison is to punish and rehabilitate
individuals whom have committed a crime. They werent funded for treating mental illness, so to
incarcerate those suffering from a mental illness is inhumane, yet there are three times as many
men and women with mental illness in U.S. prisons as in mental health hospitals (United States:
Mentally Ill Mistreated in Prison). Countless of the individuals in prison suffer from such serious
illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, and many others. Mental illness is
defined as a health condition that changes a persons thinking, feelings, or behavior (or all
three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning (Information about
Mental Illness and the Brain). Though it is acknowledged that there are many different
definitions for mental illness, the definition provided is one that most understand and would
agree upon.
The reason so many mentally ill are sent to prison, rather than a psychiatric hospital
where they can receive help, is due to the drastic decline in the number of available hospitals. In
the fifties there were 600,000 beds available for suffering individuals in State mental hospitals,
today it is only 40,000. Those numbers are astonishing considering how in the past fifty years the
countrys population has only grown rapidly. The discrepancy is because the State and Federal
governments began closing mental health hospitals and cut off funding.

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The reason this deinstitutionalization began was because of all the attention on
individuals warehoused in state hospitals. Many legal advocates fought this and the
government decided to open community mental health centers. Those centers were a large
failure; no community wanted the mentally ill near them (Mentally Ill Offenders). In 1963, the
last bill President Kennedy signed before his assassination was 3 billion towards creating mental
health facilities. However, attention was soon turned towards the Vietnam War and no money
went to the bill. It would appear that no other funds have gone to the issue since then either.
In fact, states spend less than one third on treatment for the mentally ill then they did in
the 50s. To receive private care at a mental hospital is now extremely costly and most insurance
policies have restrictions on the issue, just one more obstacle in the way of getting treatment. The
Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that forty percent of prisoners with mental illnesses were
unemployed and twice as likely as other inmates to have been homeless (Mentally Ill Offenders).
So a large amount of people cannot afford to get the help they need, and even when they can
there are no longer many available options. Subsequently it led to the current number of over
300,000 mentally ill inmates in prison now (Nation's Jails Struggle with Mentally Ill Prisoners).
The mere experience of prison is traumatic and will damage the mentally ill further.
Prison is not meant to be easy for any one, but when coupled with such health problems it can be
unbearable. The mentally ill are victimized by not only other inmates, but guards as well. They
are expected to follow the same rules as the other inmates despite the fact that they may be
mentally incapable of understanding what exactly that means and cannot control themselves.
Officers are not trained adequately to handle these mentally ill inmates who simply do not have
the mental capacity to follow protocol, untrained staff escalate confrontations with mentally ill

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prisoners, sometimes using excessive force and several mentally ill prisoners have died from
asphyxiation after struggling with guards who used improper methods to control them (Fellner).
Without the necessary care, mentally ill prisoners suffer painful symptoms and
their conditions can deteriorate. They are afflicted with delusions and
hallucinations, debilitating fears, or extreme mood swings. They huddle silently in
their cells, mumble incoherently, or yell incessantly. They refuse to obey orders
or lash out without apparent provocation. They beat their heads against cell walls,
smear themselves with feces, self-mutilate, and commit suicide. (Mental Illness,
Human Rights, and US Prisons).
When the mentally ill engage in all of the previously mentioned acts they are seen as
destroying state property, creating a disturbance, and being untidy (United States). A common
punishment is putting prisoners in solitary confinement and a federal judge was quoted as saying
that it was the mental equivalent to putting an asthmatic in a place with little air (Mental
Illness, Human Rights, and US Prisons). Studies have found that such isolation as mentally ill
inmates held in their cell for 23 hours a day will worsen psychiatric symptoms and often led to
self-mutilation or suicide attempts. So many states have laws forbidding it, but that does not
mean they always comply (Stephey). Lawsuits are constantly being filed by inmates for such
treatment, and usually win their cases. A guard may not understand that a prisoner banging their
head against the wall is doing so because of the voices in their head, so will instead just punish
them.
When its time for release of these inmates from prison, our nation continues to fail the
mentally ill. Like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, they are sent out with no medication or referrals

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to doctors that could help them. It is this countrys duty to provide mental health care for
individuals and it is not living up. The prison system has become a revolving door for a profuse
amount of mentally ill individuals. A study was conducted observing 97 schizophrenic people
over five years. All together they were arrested over 2,000 times, spent 27,000 days in jail, and
cost the tax payers 13 million dollars (Nations Jails). Individuals have the right to treatment that
can help their chances of becoming a successful member of society, and neglecting to provide
appropriate treatment is not practical for anyone.
Criminalizing the mentally ill can be explained as how people are being inappropriately
processed through the criminal justice system, instead of the mental health system. This is not
much of a surprise since the United States is the world leader for incarceration (Mentally Ill
Offenders). But why should the mentally ill individuals be punished and put in jail for actions
out of their control? The beginning of the solution can begin with the police and courts. Just the
option of sending a mentally ill defendant to a mental hospital to receive treatment instead of
prison opens up more possibilities. With adequate care and medication they would pose no harm
to society. Plus the police need to be qualified to deal with mentally ill offenders. Some states
have started to have their officers trained to deal with these individuals. Since they the first to
respond to calls involving psychiatric crises, police are in a unique position to fix the crippled
system (Stephey). They can handle the situation properly and approach the individuals
appropriately.
Take for example the case of 31 year old, Los Angeles native Mike. He suffers from all
schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Since the age of 17 he has repeatedly been
arrested for nuisance crimes like disturbing the peace. After serving his time he would soon fall
off his medication and get arrested again. He suffers from hallucinations, and three different

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times tried to provoke police to shoot him. If the police had not had special training to handle
this, the outcome could have been very different. The mentally ill cannot be held accountable for
their actions, and to place them among other criminals is indeed a cruel punishment. They are
unlikely to receive the treatment needed for real rehabilitation and therefore sending them to
prison will do more harm than good.
The purpose of mental health treatment is to help individuals recover from their illness,
alleviate its painful symptoms, prevent deterioration, and protect them from suicide. So
although there are many conscientious and committed mental health professionals working in
corrections, they face daunting if not insurmountable challenges to meeting the needs of their
patients: impossibly large caseloads, physically unpleasant facilities, and institutional cultures
that are unsympathetic to the importance of mental health services and the mentally ill do not
get the care they need (Mental Illness, Human Rights, and US Prisons). Prisons have the
responsibility to look after the health of its inmates, not only physical but mental also. If a
prisoner were to receive the wrong drug, too much of one or not enough, the results could be
horrible and also if prisoners' mental health deteriorates and they endure serious psychological
suffering because they have not been provided the mental health treatment that is needed, their
right to be free of cruel or inhuman treatment may have been violated (Mental Illness, Human
Rights, and US Prisons).
Understandably, most of the nation is currently in debt. But if the time is taken to find the
funding for building more mental health hospitals and employing better equipped staff in prisons
then this issue which has daunted the country for decades can begin to be fixed. And although it
would be an expensive endeavor, the treatment the mentally ill would get in a mental health
hospital is far more efficient for their needs then what they receive in prison. Public officials

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have already begun to take notice and speak out against incarcerating the mentally ill. It is time
to increase awareness of the public to the problem. The mentally ill need people to advocate for
them. Another step that can help the problem is when the mentally ill are released from prison.
The men and women with mental illnesses have unique needs for discharge. They require
support for housing, income, employment, and access to appropriate mental health treatment
(Mental Illness, Human Rights, and US Prisons). If they are given the proper help to assimilate
as functioning members back into society then perhaps they will not end back up in prison. Done
properly, more people will not have to go through the same situation that Mike did.
This country should not exacerbate the mentally ill individuals condition by throwing
them in prison. Overcrowding is a constant problem across the nation in prisons. Though, if the
300,000 mentally ill currently incarcerated were in a mental health hospital instead then it would
help that issue. It has been shown that the mentally ill stay in jail eight times longer than others,
at seven times the cost (Stephey). Though, it is the argument by some that our country cannot
afford to currently fix this problem. In fact, in costs tax payers millions each year to pay for all of
the mentally ill individuals wrongfully incarcerated. The consequences of the decision to close
State hospitals did not seem to have been thought out and now countless human rights of the
mentally ill are being violated. It is not practical to continue to ignore this and by helping
individual prisoners regain health and improve coping skills, mental health treatment promotes
safety and order within the prison environment and enhances community safety when prisoners
are ultimately released (Mental Illness, Human Rights, and US Prisons). It would benefit tax
payers, the mentally ill, prison guards, loved ones, and the community if more mental health
hospitals were brought back. Though it wont be easy or something that happens overnight, it is
necessary.