Throughout the prison systems, the offenders who are diagnosed with a mental illness are mistreated due to lack of funds, uneducated officers, and overpopulation. The prison system can be an effective rehabilitation and treatment for people that are mentally ill, mentally ill offender is more dangerous than the average inmate. Offenders who suffer from mental health problem will often "snap" due to stress, anxiety, and pressure. When a person who is diagnosed with a severe mental health problem, they will harm anyone or anything that gets in their way. After inmates that are mentally ill get incarcerated, many prison systems do not treat these inmates in the proper ways, causing them to hurt people around them, and also in some cases, attempt suicide and sometimes successfully end their life. Without federal funding and lack of proper training of correctional officers, police officers, and prison therapists, many prisons are ill-equipped to house inmates that need to have special medication and supervision, but with the help of many organizations and governors, the federal government has recently shined a light on this problem in correction facilities.
In prison systems, the mentally-ill inmates have it the hardest among all inmates. People who have untreated brain disorders are more likely to commit and attempt suicide, but almost every 20 failed suicide attempt there is 1 fatal death. Majority of prisons, do not properly handle inmates that have special needs and medications. Many state prisons do not have the resources or funds to maintain a mental health facility, so they use general physiatrists to have met with the inmates. Pleading insanity in the judicial system is frequently used by many criminals who are trying to get a lighter sentence, causing a stigma for people who actually have a mental illness. In 2008, there was a Task force formed to properly respond to mentally ill offenders through the justice system. The Taskforce was a group of 42 professionals who had experience in corrections, probation, and mental health experts. In 2011, this task force made almost 150 recommendation for specialized supervision treatment centers instead of putting these offenders in a state prison.
For these inmates to be put through the judicial system, they have to be properly handled by the police officers. In the first 6 months of 2015, 1/4th of the police shooting involved people who are going through emotion or mental crisis. When people are going through a mental crisis, they are behaving very extreme and erratically. An 18-year-old, Keith Vidal was suffering a mix of schizophrenia and depression and snapped one day. His stepfather called 911 and told the dispatcher that he was threatening his mother with a screwdriver. With improper training and not evaluating the situation properly, Vidal was killed on site by the law enforcement that arrived at the scene. After this extreme incident, Vidal's mom and North Carolina police department advocating for a mental health training program that all police departments. It involves hours of information on mental health, and how to act on an issue that may involve a person going through mental health problems.
One of the main reasons many prisons are inadequately equipped to properly treat and house inmates with a mental illness is because of the amount of money needed to house them. In a statistic gathered by prisons in Texas, "The average prisoner cost the state about $22,000 a year, but prisoners with mental illness range from $30,000 – $50,000". Mentally-ill inmates have more needs than an average prisoner, many of the mentally-ill inmates need daily medication to help with their diseases. In Los Angeles County jail, it cost around $10 million each year to buy medication to treat these mental illnesses. Zyprexa is an antipsychotic that treats a variety of mental illnesses including schizophrenia, in early 2000's Cuyahoga County Jail (Ohio) Spent nearly $175,000 on Zyprexa alone. These state prisons get the money from taxpayers, each year it costs $15 billion in taxpayer money to house inmates with psychiatric disorders.
Female inmates are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental health disorder. According to a special report conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics " Female inmates had higher rates of mental health problems than male inmates, State prisons: 73% of females and 55% of males; local jails: 75% of females and 63% of males". Females are more prone to a variety of different mental disorders, that can lead to serious problems, but the one main cause of females being diagnosed with mental illness is due to past abuse, both sexual and physical abuse. There is a relationship between the population of inmates with mental health problems and substance dependence or abuse. About 74.1% of inmates in state prisons have both a substance problem and also a mental health problem, while 25.9% of state prison inmates just have a mental health problem.
Recently, correctional systems have realized that special offenders are not like the average offender, They require more treatment and attention or they won't do anything except harm their self or the people around them. Many challenges that the mentally ill face frequently are lack of proper care and mistreatment. Correctional officers should be taking inmates that have serious mental health problems more serious, and take classes or courses on how to properly treat, interact, and discipline these inmates. Increasing funds to state prisons and correctional facilities would make it easier to properly treat these inmates. States have yet to incorporate this tactic to improve mental health in prison, but counties are starting to raise money and pass grants to allow more funding to improve mental health care. Governor Mark Dayton wants to include $7 million into the 2018-2019 budget, which will be meant to reform the way state prisons operate and will give better mental health facilities in Minnesota. Governor Mark Dayton state in an interview "Funding is necessary to properly address the mental health needs and civil rights of our offenders, comply with new federal guidelines and accreditation standards, and to improve public, staff and offender safety,". This funding toward Minnesota correctional facilities can make a huge impact in the recovery and rehabilitation of inmates with mental health problems, and decrease the recidivism rates.
In my idea, correctional treatment is: the patients that are in need of special treatment because of their mental health problems, would have to be put in individual cells, in the mental health ward, with the 24-hour supervision of professional experts in mental health. The correctional officers that are on duty will have to be certified to properly handle, interact, and also how to de-escalate situations that get out of control. These certified correctional officers will have to do round around the ward 24 hours a day, to make sure the inmates are not harming their selves. The treatment for each inmate will be different, the people who have the more severe mental problems will need to have more individual treatment sessions with experience psychiatrist that have years of experience with mental illness. This would benefit inmates with mental health problems by making their incarceration time more helpful for their treatment and will also protect them from harming anyone else, including themselves.
The correctional systems lack the resources to house inmates that are dangerous to themselves and the community due to their mental illness. The main reason that prisons have not done anything to improve their mental health treatment is that many of the officers have no idea how serious mental illness can be. This issue is more serious than the general population realizes, almost half of the prison population has some sort of mental health problem with the greater population being females. Females are more likely to have a severe mental health problem because of an abusive past including sexual abuse or physical or even both. With this statistic being so large, prisons need to take into consideration that females may need more treatment and better psychiatrist to help treat their mental health problems.