Prisons
The field of prisons corrections is a challenging one. Our societycontinually changes its mind about what it wants prisons to do: we wantthem to punish wrong-doers, but we also want to help the prisoners returnto society ready to be productive citizens. But today's prisons also faceimportant issues that may not be obvious to the country's taxpayers. TedStrickland, a congressional representative from Ohio, used to work as apsychologist in an Ohio prison. He reports some of the behaviors he had todeal with while trying to help prisoners who were mentally ill: he hadurine flung in his face and was threatened multiple times with violence.One time someone threatened to throw HIV-positive blood in his face(Strickland, 2002). He is one of a number of prison professionals whorealize that today's prisons contain a large and growing population ofprisoners with significant mental health problems. Many of these inmateshove problems with substance abuse as well (Sigurdson, 2000). The prison problem is related to problems we have dealing with mentalillness in society in general. Over the past thirty years, 90% of beds instate psychiatric hospitals have been eliminated (Sigurdson, 2000). In
Prison staff will have to be trained, in addition,to deal with prisons whose actions are the result of, as Strickland (2002)says, a "malfunctioning brain. * They have a harder time finding and keeping jobs (Groom, 1999). Many peoplewith even conditions as severe as schizophrenia are not hospitalized. The head of the ColoradoDepartment of Corrections says that this population is very often"predators or victims," and in either role, complicate prison management(Groom, 1999). Some experts feel that the increase in mental healthpatients/prisoners is related to the recent mental health movement wheremost institutionalized patients were returned to their communities. Groom (1999) reports that the state of Colorado alone has 1,000prisoners considered "chronically mentally ill, double the number they hadin 1955. So it seems likely that the pattern of housingsignificant numbers of prisoners who also face significant mental healthchallenges will continue (Sigurdson, 2000). Somenote a relationship between homeless people facing mental health issues anda revolving door pattern between homeless people and jail or prison(Sigurdson, 2000). * When an inmate has a substance abuse problem with or without additional mental illness, attempts to stay clean and sober compete with the difficulties of keeping contraband drugs out of the prison (Strickland, 2002), making it hard for them to detoxify and stay off drugs. n most major cities the jails house more people with serious mentalillness than the local psychiatric hospitals (Sigurdson, 2000). * Without adequate social, familial and medical support, many stop taking needed medications that would help them function better (Groom, 1999). Unfortunately, duringthe time this population was growing, the amount of professional staff,such as psychiatrists and psychologists, competent to work with them hassteadily shrunk (Strickland, 2002). * Those with mental illness often lack support from family and friends, making it harder for them to live within society's bounds. Sinceour correctional system houses these individuals, they must be prepared tomeet their mental health needs for the benefit and safety of the otherprisoners and prison employees as well as for the individual with themental health problem. * Judges may recognize that an offender is mentally ill but have no other choices but to send them to prison (Groom, 1999).
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Acceptance Essays
