Question

debate the use of mental institutions or prisons/jails as confinement facilities for those who have mental health issues. Where do students believe those persons should carry out their criminal sentence? Why?

Answer 1

Answer.

Prisons in the United States have become the docks for the severely mentally ill who are institutionalised under the guise of punishing trivial criminal behaviours which may actually be symptomatic of their underlying criminality.

The use of prison facilities for the mentally ill is thus a highly controversial issue and it invites a strong criticism, this is because the Social oddities due to a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia needs to be differentiated from a more intentional harm committed by a law offender. The larger social stigma against mental illness has lead the majority of population to consider mentally ill people as potential criminals who are then locked up as a way to prevent them from harming others around them. However, within the prison, their symptoms, they may be subjected to even greater cruelty than they can actually commit onto others. As prison inmates, they may be subject to cruelty from corrections staff, physical constraint up to and including lockdown or solitary confinement, and shocking physical and sexual abuse from other prisoners. All this can further exacerbate their symptoms and may receive no or inadequate treatment and as a result many are susceptible to commit suicide while in prison.

Thus, prison inacraceration is an inadequate policy when it comes to the institutionalisation of the mentally ill offenders of menial crimes as it only represents a problem that will only worsen unless one distinguishes between mental illness and criminality. In determining the right facility for the mentally ill persons, an in-house mental health institution programme is found to offer a more promising approach as the supervised monitoring and treatment for the underlying problem can be addressed more effectively in the professioanl medical environment than in a professionally punitive prison facility.