Question

Analyze if inmates should be able to refuse mental health treatment. Currently, when may an inmate be forced to be provided mental health treatment? How could you fashion a treatment plan for non-compliant suicidal inmate? Justify your answers with scholarly research.

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary. Also, I have written about my personal views, you may change the response in areas where you disagree.

(Answer) Let us assume that John Doe is an individual with mental illness and is not a prisoner. John is suffering from a certain mental illness and his family and friends are quite concerned about him. John is adamant that he is mentally stable and on those grounds refuses to seek help.

The issue here is that John exhibits symptoms of mental illness and one of the symptoms is denial. Because his family is aware of this, they attempt to find loopholes to get him into a clinic that would require patient consent. With the help of a lawyer, they are able to allow John’s mother and family physician gather information about John from when he was healthy and well and leading up to his present condition. The family physician was able to prove that his stress levels are evident in his blood pressure and other medical data.

With all of this evidence, the lawyer is able to let John’s mother take charge of the patient’s decisions on the grounds that he is currently unstable. John’s mother then immediately sends John for the appropriate treatment, which turns out to help John immensely.

If John were in prison and facing the same issues, one of his symptoms would again be 'denial'. The difference this time is that John has committed a serious crime because of his mental state. Furthermore, upon his release, he is likely to hurt people again because of his progressive condition. In such a situation, mental health treatment becomes essential than serving a prison sentence. The purpose of a prison sentence is to turn an inmate into a properly functioning member of society. This is possible only if prison is a holistic experience on the temperament and the civic sense of an individual. In such a situation, it should be a court mandate to treat an individual that might show psychological symptoms and hostile attitudes.

For a non-compliant suicidal inmate, on the grounds that they are mentally unstable, the court should be allowed to be decision makers in helping these individuals come out of a state of despair. Furthermore, treatment should be conducted in a calm environment with professionals around this inmate. The treatment should not be this bout of medication or counseling that might aggravate the condition but rather should be gradually administered, depending on the disorder.