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Criminalizing the Mentally Ill
By Catherine Wise
"Sharon" ended up with misconducts and time in the hole for swallowing razor blades in repeated suicide attempts. "Daniel" earned time in the hole after experiencing wild panic attacks when other inmates repeatedly threw lighted matches in his cell. Both of these people are state prisoners and both are mentally ill.
On top of all the problems associated with prison life is the complexity imposed by a steadily increasing number of incoming inmates who suffer from mental illness. It's a situation as troubling for inmates as it is for prison staffs, yet it remains largely out of sight and out of mind to citizens.
Consider the following statistics:
In Pennsylvania, 16% of incarcerated men and 36% of incarcerated women are diagnosed with a mental health disorder, according to the Department of Corrections.
Nationally, 16% of all prisoners have a mental health diagnosis and one out of 10 inmates receive psychotropic medications. (Bureau of Justice Statistics)
The Coalition for Juvenile Justice estimates that 50 to 75% of youth in the juvenile justice system nationally have mental disorders.
Nationally, 5.4% of the non-incarcerated population is mentally ill.
The percentage of inmates in Pennsylvania with mental illness rose to 16.2% as of January 2002, up from 13.4% in 2000. "While we have been able to properly assess and deal with the increased number of mentally ill inmates, this increase does put additional stress on the system," said DOC Secretary Jeffrey Beard, Ph.D.
The closing of most state mental hospitals, insufficient links between people accused of a crime and mental health support services, and inaccessible mental health care in the community in general, have contributed to making our prisons and jails a repository for people with mental health problems.
Until the 1950's mentally ill people were largely hidden away in state mental hospitals. By the early 60's, as new (Next Page)
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