Posted: August 1st, 2023

Challenges with housing the mentally ill

Ask the following questions of the local jail administrator:
• Does the jail/prison maintain a separate block/unit for mentally ill inmates? yes
• What is the total number of inmates housed in the facility? 700 average
• How many mentally ill inmates are housed in the facility? 55% have mental health issues however approximately 125 are manic mental health the remainder are able to function in general population
• Does the jail/prison provide psychological and psychiatric care for these inmates? yes
• Do mentally ill inmates receive evaluations by psychologists or psychiatrists? Yes as well as a medical doctor.
• What is the cost for the care of each mentally ill inmate compared to the cost of a non-mentally ill inmate? 55K a year is the cost to have the psychiatrist present 3 days a week
• What is the recidivism rate of the mentally ill inmates? In other words, how many times has the same inmate been re-arrested? 2x as much
• What are the crimes committed by mentally ill inmates? Criminal mischief, auto burglary, trespassing,
Evaluate the obtained data, and then develop an action plan that offers solutions and recommendations to improve the care of the mentally ill inmates in prisons and jails. Base your solutions and recommendations on the results of your interview, this week’s readings, and your own research. Be sure to include answers to the following research questions, along with the data collected during the interview:
1. Do you believe that the mentally ill inmates receive adequate care in the correction facility? Why or why not? Support your reasoning with the answers from the interview.
2. The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution mentions cruel and unusual punishment. Based on your interview and readings, is inadequate care for mentally-ill inmates considered cruel and unusual punishment?
3. When considering the cost comparison between mentally-ill inmates and non-mentally ill inmates, does the housing of the mentally ill burden the budget of corrections? How does it affect the efficiency of the department?
4. Provide suggestions to reduce recidivism of mentally ill inmates.
Support your assignment with at least three scholarly resources. In addition to these specified resources, other appropriate scholarly resources, including older articles, may be included.
Length: 5-7 pages, not including title and reference pages
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Challenges with housing the mentally ill
Name
Institution

The United States prison has hundreds of thousands of men and women who suffer from mental disorders including serious cases such as bipolar, schizophrenia and depression conditions. The policy systems have gone from institutionalizing these individuals to incarcerating them at an increasing rate hence putting recovery out of reach for the mental illness individuals. The Mental Health America (MHA) supports the mentally ill by providing accessible mental health treatment for all who are confined in the juvenile or adult correctional facilities. The system intention is to protect the vulnerable prisoners by preserving their human rights. The increase of the incarceration of such individuals has caused the prison mental health services to be deficient due to the understaffing and insufficient resources that lead the prisoners to receive little or no meaningful treatment. Overcrowding in the systems has led the separation of prisoner classes’ hence ineffective classification. Also, the incarcerated individuals with mental illness end up being neglected and punished for their malingering behavior (Clement et al.2011).
Every prisoner with mental illness has the basic rights to receive medical services from the correctional facilities. The prisoners may be vulnerable because of their inability to assert their human rights hence they require more than minimum services to existing in the facilities. The specific rights State that the mental inmates should be protected from harm including staff abuse.The environment is expected to be safe, humane and sanitary through applying the necessary measures. Upon admission, all prisoners are expected to be screened by trained personnel for mental health and addiction problems. When an individual is detected to have mental health issues they are referred for further evaluation and treatments by mental health professionals (Ahalt et al.2013). The treatment is expected to entail respect and empathy for the involved individuals. The intervention must include a full range of available medications hence meeting the prisoner’s needs. Also, the health interventions are expected to have family consultations depending on the prisoner’s preferences. The qualified staff should inform the prisoner of his consent in the treatment process through informing him or her of the risks, benefits, purpose and the nature of the treatment (Fellner,2016). The rights condemn the prisoner to be subjects of research without consent and proper ethical review. The prisoner has the right to refuse treatment just like any other person including the psychotropic medications. However, there have been cases where psychotropic medications have been used as a chemical restraint for prisoner control.
The medications used are expected to be administered in a consistent manner when monitored and the treatment plan must be monitored by a professional. The MHA supports the right to a least restrictive environment that minimizes the use of intrusive, punitive and restrictive control measures. The correctional facilities were not intended to be for the mentally ill but the system grew to be inclusive because many of the mentally ill individuals in the community are swept in the criminal justice system after committing crimes. Study shows that the U.S prisons entail three times more mentally ill individuals than the mental health hospitals (Ahalt et al.2013). Also, the prisoners were diagnosed to have a higher rate of mental illness that is twice as much than the members of the general public. Most of the mentally ill offenders are arrested for reasons such as criminal mischief, auto burglary, and trespassing.
Records show that the recidivism of the mentally ill inmates is twice as much for an individual inmate. The jail system places these in inmates in separate blocks or units with a total of 700 inmates per block. Among the mentally ill inmates housed in the facility,55 percent are considered to have mental health issues while the remaining entail the manic cases and the individuals who are able to function in the general population. The correctional facilities provide psychiatric care at least thrice a week which costs $55,000 per year to maintain the services (Hoke,2015). However, research suggests that very few prisons accommodate the needs of the challenged inmates. The prisoners are viewed as difficult and disruptive hence they end up being placed in the solitary confinement units. The segregation cells alongside the inadequate mental health services increase the suffering of the mentally ill the aggravating spaces. Some inmates experience severe deterioration that they have been moved to hospital for acute psychiatric attention. However, after stabilizing, these inmates are usually returned to the same environment with the same conditions.
The penal network establishes restrictive zones for the mentally ill inmates hence the system does not serve s a warehouse for the mentally ill. The system ends up being an incubator that creates more illnesses and psychiatric breakdowns. For instance, a mentally ill inmate named Jamycheal Mitchell,24 was arrested for stealing Mountain Dew from a 7 eleven and he spent more than a month in jail leading to him not taking his schizophrenic medication. He was found to be incompetent to stand the trial due to his condition, therefore, he was sent to a state hospital for competency restoration. The competency restoration involves a combination of legal process education alongside mental health treatment and psychiatric medication. The hospital lacked the necessary resources to accommodate Mitchell who was later returned to jail. His conditioned deteriorated and he was found dead four months later due to cardiac arrhythmia related to wasting syndrome (Hoke,2015).
The mental health services in the correctional facilities require effective improvement to prevent death cases of mentally ill patients. Tragic cases can be prevented through better measures and resources. Interviews done at the Federal Bureau of Prisons found that the efforts of the system to improve the system over the past 30 years have failed because the system has failed to meet its vast needs that are caused by the increase of the inmates with mental illness. New thinking patterns need to be adopted to combat the situation. The prisons and jails have become the de facto treatment center that locks up the mentally ill offenders instead of treating them. The mental health services should offer psychiatry and therapeutic systems 24 hours per day and seven days per week. The facilities need to identify and treat the occurring disorders of the inmates especially the substance abuse inmates so as to provide assistance and support to the community (Ahalt et al.2013). The mentally ill individuals who enter the prison while already under a treatment should be assisted in continuing the treatment. The prisoners who have acute mental disorders must be allocated in the proper medical or mental health units to prevent suicidal cases. A proper prevention ion the cases of suicide require suicide prevention plans that include appropriate staff, admission, staff training, and certification. The mental health inmates have the right to quality assessments and adequate monitoring by professionals (Chandler et al.2009). Also, the inmates’ family should be updated on the procedures and notifications of the inmates’ status on consensual terms.
Many states have created a class of prison call the Supermax which functions to reduce violence within the prison systems by creating extremely isolated environments for the inmates. The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual environments of inmates thus the level of inadequate care of the mentally ill inmates is considered a cruel and unusual punishment. The MHA has raised concerns over the allegations against the Supermax prisons abusive and cruel actions towards all the inmates including the mentally ill inmates (Ahalt et al.2013). The general law prohibits the criminalization of the people whose minds do not have criminal intent during the commission of crimes hence mentally ill people should be treated instead of being prosecuted. Each year individuals with mental illness are booked into jail thus accounting to 2 million people per year. Half of these inmates are referred to treatment jails which have shaped the county jails into the nation’s largest mental health facility, incarcerating a person with mental illness in jail costs $31,000 annually while the health services cost $10,000 including the security costs and insurance costs. Imprisonment of the non-ill inmates cost an average of $30,000 including the medical and security costs thus the mentally ill costs are higher as compared to normal imprisonment. Also, the cost concerns are a pressing issue due to the expanding of the inmate population that has increased the individual taxes to maintain the necessary budget (Ahalt et al.2013). The cost includes the employee salaries and retirement costs thus the cost affects the departments leading to shortages of payments.
Recidivism is the repeated incarceration of mentally ill offenders. Repeat offenders initiate further strains to the prison budget because operation a safe and humane institution is not a cheap venture. Research shows that 4 out of 10 people released from jail are re-incarcerated within three years of release. The mental healthcare of these inmates is crucial and expensive while lowering the costs per inmate is not a necessary priority (Hoke,2015). The necessary measures to take to prevent recidivism is creating reentry interventions that help the mentally ill inmates to readjust back into society through better treatments.Study shows that the inmates released from prison suffer from homelessness, unemployment, trauma and addiction problems. Providing mental healthcare will reduce the reoccurrence of criminal behavior patterns. Teaching the inmates how to cope with the mental illness and adopting practical life skills will enable the inmates to develop health connections and actions that allow them to interact better with the community (Clement et al.2011).
The mental health imprisonment system requires a better system in treating the inmates inappropriately due to lack of awareness. Furthermore, offenders with mental health problems should be assessed before being subjected to harsh conditions depending on their level of crime and the level of threat to society. The prisons are not well equipped for the mentally ill hence the sentencing of the non-offenders and the mentally ill should be reduced.Also, the general public and the correctional system should be educated to debunk the myths about mental illness hence fostering better treatment toward the offenders.

References
Hoke, S., (2015) “Mental Illness and Prisoners: Concerns for Communities and Healthcare Providers ” OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 20, No. 1, Manuscript 3.
Ahalt C, Trestman RL, Rich JD, Greifinger RB, Williams BA. (2013). Paying the price: the pressing need for quality, cost, and outcomes data to improve correctional healthcare for older prisoners. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc. 61(11):2013–19
Chandler RK, Fletcher BW, Volkow ND. (2009). Treating drug abuse and addiction in the CJS improving public health and safety. JAMA 301(2):183–90
Clement M, Schwarzfeld M, Thompson M. (2011) National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety: Addressing Recidivism, Crime, and Corrections Spending. New York: Council. State Gov. Justice Cent.
Fellner J. (2016). A corrections quandary: mental illness and prison rules. Harvard Civ. Rights-Civ. Liberties Law Rev. 41:391–412

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