Recently, my son Todd, who suffers with schizophrenia and remains unmedicated, was arrested for simple harassment. When he failed to appear for a hearing, a bench warrant was issued, and he was arrested. After spending 3 weeks in prison for something he didn’t quite understand, Todd finally had someone call me, and I posted bail. He was then scheduled for trial.
When my daughter told this to her therapist, the therapist’s response was that maybe Todd would be better off in prison because he might then get some type of treatment for his illness.
As of 2003, approximately one in six, and three times as many men as women, in United States prisons suffer with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. In fact, the rate of mental illness in the prison population is reported to be three times higher than in the general population. And for those who suffer serious mental illnesses, prison can be the worst of places. Often victimized, exploited, and sexually abused, mentally ill prisoners are not uncommonly punished by the prison staff for their symptoms such as being noisy, refusing orders, or even attempting suicide.
As for treatment, while prison mental health services have improved over the past two decades, the number of men and women entering prison has outrun the availability of services, and public officials have been unwilling to provide the funds necessary to ensure adequate treatment for those with mental illnesses. And so, prisons have become the new mental institutions. http://www.geocities.com/stargazers_here/mental_illness.html
Although Todd’s “offense” was shaking his finger in the face of a police officer, there are those with mental illnesses whose offenses may warrant some sort of incarnation. However, these individuals should at least be housed in facilities designed and funded to meet their mental health needs.
When all is said and done, the fact is that current psychiatric laws forbid us from committing our mentally ill loves ones into treatment unless there is “clear and present danger.” The flip side is that then the mentally ill are punished because they can’t function according to society’s rules and expectations. It’s a catch-22.
I disagree with my daughter’s therapist.
What do you think?
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3 comments:
I disagree with your daughter's therapist. From personal experience, I can tell you that your son will be extremely lucky to receive any treatment while incarcerated. Despite what you may be led to believe our prisons are not equipped to treat our mentally ill. They simply do not have the resources.
My son was incarcerated due to a pyschotic incident. In the future I plan to share more of the details as I believe our story may help to illustrate how dysfuntional and misaligned our system is with the needs of our mentally ill, and that this may in turn incite those who care, to work to bring about some positive changes to our current system.
From my experience, I do not believe that our prisons and jails are a place for our mentally ill. At best they are warehoused in these facilities. My son was taken off his medication upon incarceration. Were it not for the tireless efforts of many individuals and my state legislator's office, my son most likely would not have received his medication as quickly as he did (53+ hours after incarceration!). There has been no other treatment given (except for court ordered Anger Management Classes), so don't be fooled into thinking that everyone gets treatment in prison; they don't. The court's idea of treatment is Anger Management Classes. Much will depend on the facility and I do not believe that any of them are equipped to provide adequate services. They are all overcrowded and are having a hard enough time dealing with that situation.
All progress my son was making in his treatment program stopped the moment he was put into the correctional facility.
Also make a note that it had taken 15 years to convince my son to get into treatment. Once we had finally achieved this extremely important milestone, the sentencing Judge undid our achievement by sentencing our son to 3-23 months in prison and taking him out of the treatment program it had taken us 15 years to convince our son to get into! He was stable and adhering to treatment and medication at the time of sentencing (under the care of a pyschiatrist, therapist, and dedicated case worker). Yes, a dream come true and a success story to be thankful for. The criminal justice system did not realize the significance or importance of this.
So not only are we, as care givers, trying to convince our mentally ill loved ones to seek treatment; when we finally do, the criminal justice system is sabotaging our efforts!
I support SB226 as it should not have to take 15 years to "convince" a mentally ill loved one to get help who has a serious mental health issue. However, my experience has now shown me that our system actually takes our mentally ill out of successful treatment programs to punish them. So even with SB226, we still have a long way to go.
It seems as a society, we still do not recognize mental illness as an illness. It seems we still do not want to treat the mentally ill, but really do want to punish them. Until that attitude is changed, this will be a difficult and uphill battle. Humanizing the mentally ill seems to be at the core of this issue. For centuries, as a society, this nation has made it a point to dehumanize our mentally ill and my recent experiences has shown me that attitude still prevails, and I personnally believe it is at the heart of many of our problems here. I think we need to face the fact that many people, even those in positions of passing legislation, making decisions that affect our mentally ill loved ones, etc. do not view our loved ones as "valued" humans.
I do have hope though, as I am now seeing some people in places of authority trying to make a positive change in the system. They not only support SUB 226, but also support programs to divert our mentally ill from our prisons into treatment programs (not out of treatment programs and into prison, as happened with my son!).
And to get back to the point, I think any alternative to a correctional facility is best for a mentally ill person. Each day is a risk for them. The added stress of being in that facility adversely affects their mental health, the lack of treatment they receive adversely affects their mental health, they are at a higher risk of being brutalized by correctional staff and other inmates, and the list goes on from there.
Get a good lawyer and do your best to keep your son out of a correctional facility. Do your best to support SB226 so that you can get him the treatment he needs, and understand that even if you get him the treatment he needs, there is a risk that our judicial system may decide to take him out of that treatment once you achieve this! They may decide that "punishment is in order" for that finger wagging and that the punishment is more important than the treatment. So a good lawyer is of paramount importance! Also, ensure you are supporting our legislators in their efforts in decriminalizing our mentally ill.
And good luck, as you will need it with the current state that our system is in. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your son.
I would like to preface this with a note about serious violent offenders. This is another more serious issue to consider and I am in no way making commentary on that issue. It is one that fully needs consideration as the violently mentally ill also do benefit from treatment and also need to be treated humanely. I do not have the education or expertise to comment on this level of behavior or suggest treatment options for this level of mental illness. My comments were directed for non violent offenders, such as "Todd" for finger wagging, or those like my son, who start out with minor offenses and it turns into an aggrevated harrassment case due to mental impairment.
I don't understand, The bottom line with SB 226 is that persons not doing well, not agreeing to treatment or taking medication will havge a warent out for thier arrest, and they will be taken the same county prison..Except for the old state institions that are being closed, tere are no community programs out there that will police someone 24/7 who doesn not " beleive they are mentally ill
When assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) is court ordered under SB 226, there is no warrant that is issued for the mentally ill person’s arrest, so this person would absolutely not be taken to a county prison. However, the person could be taken to a hospital for 72 hours if his or her doctor determined noncompliance with prescribed treatment, particularly medications. If the mentally ill person then meets the criteria under our current law, of "clear and present danger to self or others," then he or she could be involuntarily hospitalized. Although Raymond is correct that there are no programs or services that will supervise or watch someone 24/7, we do now have some ACT programs in Pennsylvania that would help to increase the intensity of services, and those programs do have 24/7 crisis intervention available.
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