Imprisoning the mentally ill

Abstract

The number of mentally ill or disabled men and women is growing rapidly that the prisons could be considered as the biggest mental health care providers, esp. in the USA. There are numerous social and legal reasons to debate on the confinement of the mentally disabled people.

Table of contents

Introduction3

Discussion3

Mentally ill and crimes4

Drug abuse4

Personality disorders4

Statistics5

Imprisoning mentally ill and law5

Imprisoning according to law5

Mentally ill prisoners in jail6

Release of mentally ill7

Imprisoning and social aspects7

Treatment of mentally ill8

Conclusion9

References10

Imprisoning the mentally ill people

Introduction

The mentally ill person is considered a stigma in today's society. The general behavior of the society towards the mentally ill people is that they are dangerous, a threat and should be confined. Some crimes are a result of severe mental disorders but not crimes occur as a result of such condition. Due to the increasing number of mentally ill people and the society fear, they are imprisoned in jail, which serve for their poor and inadequate treatment. The prisons provide the mental health treatment, instead of hospitals. Laws are made to legalize their imprisonment and protect their rights and of public. It is important to analyze the causes of such criminal behavior, and why is it a necessity to imprison the mentally ill in the light of legal and social perspectives.

Discussion

In order to understand the purpose of imprisonment of the mentally ill people, it is important to study the relation between crimes and their behavior, their causes and how it can impose a threat to the general public. It is also important to consider the legal and social aspects that impact the need to imprison the mentally ill people.

Mentally ill and crimes

By definition, the rational violation of the law is considered as a crime. It is not a mental disorder or is a substantial proof of mental disorder. Mental disorder is the irrational behavior with some level of distress. The action resulting from such behavior or mental disorder could or could not necessarily be criminal and so, the mentally ill could or could not be held be legally responsible for such conduct. Therefore, some crimes do occur because of the mental disorder, but not all the crimes are a result of such disorder. Some reasons that account for their criminal behavior and how it accounts for their imprisonment are drugs and personality disorders.

Drug abuse

Accurate and reliable data are difficult to obtain as some crimes are never reported. Therefore, it is hard to determine the crimes of mental disabled people. According to a recent study about criminal acts, people suffering from mental disorders, such as depression or schizophrenia, have the same chance of committing crimes than normal people. For example, use of drug can cause mentally ill and normal people both to commit a crime at an equal level, but the mentally disabled people are seven times more likely to drug abuse than normal people. The use of the drug is one reason for more crimes than major mental disorder, but mentally ill people have a ...