Should the mentally ill be in jail?
Prison is a brutal place designed to punish people for crimes they willfully committed. And yet a large portion of US prisoners are mentally ill, many so ill that they are not fully rational.
Due to the nationwide lack of available community psychiatric services, prisons have become the primary treatment provider for the mentally ill. After being charged with a crime, mentally ill offenders enter a vicious cycle of incarceration, abuse, exacerbation of symptoms, and recidivism—and the treatment they do receive is almost universally sub par. Some argue that prison is absolutely no place for the mentally ill. Others contend that prisons are the only source of guaranteed treatment and supervision for the mentally ill in this country.
On what grounds should we imprison the mentally ill? If there are none, what are we committed to do?
–William Kowalsky
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Should the mentally ill be in jail?
A prison is a place to confine one and restrain him/her from personal liberty. When a person is mentally ill he might not acknowledge the actions that he has committed. Thus, he may not even know why is he in prison? I believe that criminals going through mental illness should not be prisoned since that would defeat the purpose for them realizing their faults. A way to handle this situation would be to first provide them with some type therapy and counsel them on a daily basis. Once they are being treated notify them the reason they are in prison and help them realize for what they have done.