Jail More Likely Than Treatment For Americans With Psychiatric Disorders

Jail More Likely Than Treatment For Americans With Psychiatric Disorders

Americans with severe mental illness are three times more likely to go to prison than to a psychiatric hospital, new research indicates.

While the likelihood varies by state, there is no state where individuals experiencing diagnoses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are more likely to be in a psychiatric hospital than a jail, the findings from a new report conducted by the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs’ Association indicate.

The best case scenario appears to be in North Dakota where the odds are one to one that a person with mental illness will be in prison or a psychiatric hospital. In contrast, Arizona and Nevada each host 10 times more people with mental illness in their jails than in psychiatric facilities.

What’s more, states that spent less on mental health care services had more individuals with mental illness in their jails, according to the report.

“America’s jails and prisons have once again become our mental hospitals,” said James Pavle, executive director at the Treatment Advocacy Center, which promotes treatment for those with mental illness. “With minimal exception, incarceration has replaced hospitalization for thousands of individuals in every single state.”

http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2010/05/13/mental-illness-jail/8038/

of patients in ERs and inpatient medical beds while waiting for a psych bed to open up. Many of those in jails are there due to having been arrested for "nuisance" crimes, e.g. public urination, dine-and-dash, minor shoplifting and so forth. There is a lack of mechanisms for transferring people with mental illness from jails to hospitals because those "crimes" often fail to meet the criteria for involuntary treatment.

Since urination is a basic human need, wouldn't it be a good thing to have adequate facilities?

AND, for many, those facilities should be in a...gasp...HOME.

is poverty. Even the minor shoplifting offenses often involve stealing food. Housing (that can tolerate a person's symptoms, especially) is a crucial need.

the "public urination". That was the point I was making, and it is a simple one.

It is time to get everyone to stop equating homelessness with "mental illness". That is a myth, and a particularly vicious one.

Every homeless person I have ever talked with at length has said that the assumption that they are "mentally ill" is the ONE most hurtful aspect of being homeless.

Enough!

Nowhere in my post did I equate homelessness with mental illness. each can exist independently of the other or they can happen at the same time. This particular thread is about mental illness.

Just like other groups have to keep refuting the erroneous statements made about them, I have to do the same.

It was linked in your post, and I replied to it.

And will continue to do so until there is more awareness of the subject.

because people who are homeless AND mentally ill are more likely than the general population, or people with mental illness who are not homeless, to wind up in jail.

Just like for many years, gays and mental illness was linked in peoples' minds.

Both of those misconceptions are damaging and both have to be countered.

You seem to be looking for a fight where there is none. I'll bow out now. The last word is yours.

Not even CLOSE to "often linked".

THAT is the meme that needs to be buried, once and for all.

It is the myth that hurts so many homeless people, and causes so much suffering. THAT is why I will keep correcting it until "progressives" can learn this simple fact.

The short term homeless likely do not have mental health issues or substance abuse problems (which is a mental health issue). They are between jobs, laid off, etc.

The long term homeless however tend to have higher rates of mental health problems.


Social stigmas tend to coagulate at the bottom of the socioeconomic totem pole. Mental illness, poverty, being non-white, being gay, drug addiction, homelessness, prisoners and ex-convicts, domestic abuse, crime victimization, etc.

Gays have higher drug addiction rates, and the rate of homosexuality among teenage homeless is 20-50% (despite gays only being 5% of kids). Non-whites have higher rates of incarceration and drug addiction, and higher poverty rates. The mentally ill are poor and end up in prison, and are more likely to be victimized by crime.

Basically social stigmas feed off each other. Abuse victims develop more mental illnesses. Non-whites are more likely to be poor or homeless. Gays have higher rates of domestic violence and drug addiction than heterosexuals.

But as a recovered schizophrenic, when I hear someone say 'the most hurtful thing about being homeless is people assume you are mentally ill', that is like someone saying to a gay person 'the most hurtful thing about being a homeless teenager is people assume you are gay', because gays are drastically overrepresented among homeless teenagers because their parents kick them out, or they get bullied in school, or something else.

But my point is that social stigmas coagulate at the bottom of the socio-economic totem pole. If you are in one socially excluded group (ex-con, mentally ill, poor, non-white, addicted, gay, homeless, abused, etc) you are likely to be in another too.

Again, I will refer you to Without Housing
http://www.wraphome.org/downloads/without_housing.pdf

I would really appreciate it if DUers would be willing to read a report that sticks to actual facts, rather than the commonly repeated stereotypes.

NOW, for "chronic homelessness".... when you have CLOSED WAITING LISTS FOR HOUSING, and those localities that have waiting lists for housing those lists are YEARS long, you are going to have people who have been homeless waiting for housing for YEARS.

"Chronic homelessness" means people who have been homeless for a year or more... what you are referring to as "long-term". So, they get labeled "chronically homeless", and that is a dog whistle for "substance abuser", "mentally ill".

BUT, most are NEITHER of those things..... they are simply people who can't afford housing!

Please understand, you are trying to "explain" things to me that I am very familiar with, and I know the reality, not the made-up media dog whistles.

I would appreciate it if "progressives" would also acquaint themselves with the reality of homelessness instead of parroting what is printed in the media. Surely we know by now that the corporate media isn't always our friend.

nt

As our tech got better and better, our access got worse and worse.

the case. We know more than ever about how to treat some of these problems, at least to a degree, and we use in real life a fraction, and not a large fraction, of what we know. If we were this negligent in physical medicine it would be considered a crime.

Usually, neither jail nor "treatment" is all that productive.

Not that that would matter to this society.

could be a lot more effective than it is if we used what we know.

It is very, very sad.

it helped me a great deal. There are good meds for things like bipolar and schizophrenia which, coupled with therapy, can help one become a productive member of society.

What, we should just bring back the big asylums and lock up everyone with a mental illness for their own protection?

trumped up questions, the conversation has been closed.

No need to be insulting with that kind of sillyness.

Bye, now.

that's the other option. If you can't answer, you can't answer. Nice try at taking the high road.

Fail.

which many here seem to be making.

There are many levels to that, and I am too tired to take it on.

Thanks.

in private group homes. The idea is that the patient - the "consumer"-is taught while hospitalized to "recover" from serious mental illness (usually schizophrenia) to a point where the person can return to "the community" and continue the "journey to recovery" more or less on their own. This supposedly allows the person a better life and frees the state from responsibility for the patient's later episodes of disease. I worked in this field for years and I find this is mainly an effort to cut state costs while transferring the cost to the counties who are the supporters of the group home and whatever programs may be available to the "recovering" patient.

I am certain that given the terrible economic state of the last years the counties have cut revenues to these programs, and many may have been eliminated completely for economic or political reasons. The states assumed responsibility for treatment/protection of the mentally ill in the late 1800's, and began to abdicate that responsibility a century later, and not the responsibility seems to have evaporated.
Mental health programs are controlled by politicians, and politicians care about money.

mark

And it bothers me more when I consider the Maryland DMV asked me about my mental illness when I got my ID card there.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8338158&mesg_id=8338158

Many, many people are diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Many of them are capable of committing crimes that have absolutely nothing to do with their illness. We should not assume that just because someone has a psychiatric disorder it is the reason they act badly or that it should automatically serve as a get out of jail free card.

These need to be decided on a case by case basis.

and read the section you're pointing at and I can't find it, eg, the "dine and dash" reference.

TAC seems to be saying that mental illness is criminalized.

It is also promulgated in near-subliminal form by some treatment-advocacy groups. Assaulting one's mom because one thinks she's the Antichrist (for example) is a different crime from assaulting one's mom because she won't give one money for beer and cigarettes. Regardless of the needs of the mental health system, which are very real and very great, there will always be a need for mental health treatment to be available in the jails. One obvious reason for this is that signs of mental illness are often not readily apparent to LEO's who make an arrest. Plenty of people are quietly delusional and don't manifest other sign/symptoms until after they are incarcerated.

It is disgusting what we are willing to do to each other (and allow to be done).

Mental Health treatment now consists of spending a night on a cold cement floor of the drunk tank in the county jail. The politicians have seen fit to put this function over onto Law Enforcement.. when it IS NOT a Law Enforcement problem... it is a MEDICAL problem. (as well as a social problem)

There are NO BEDS for mental health patients. (or damm few) If that sounds austere.. be advised there are even less beds for FEMALE mental health patients in particular.

You can throw a male in the drunk tank, and release him in the morning , as long as he doesn't consider suicide, and this will pass for mental health "care".

But with Females.. homelessness and domestic violence are more prevalent in each case. Females (more often) need a safe place to stay and a way out of their current living situation. But.. thanks to our Republican Legislators...the problem has been swept under the rug for decades. They are unwilling to fund this type of treatment, saying that it is "unwarranted" and not necessary.

Private Foundations have taken up much of the slack in Mental Health interventions, (thank God).. but the dollars are running very thin and the beds are scarce.

If you have ever had a family member in need of Mental Health Services.. you know what a nightmare it is.

I had a father who suffered from acute Bi-Polar disorder and PTSD after service in Korea. He refused to take his medication. Needless to say, this is where I gained my inside knowledge on the workings of our invisible/non-existent Mental Health System.

If you ever have the opportunity to work on a non-profit project or to volunteer in any way for mental health associations.. please help. The need is so great.. and the resources so small.. any thing you can do will bring back rewards 1000 times.

It is truly sad in a country with Millions of Millionaires... that we treat our people this way.

Last week I donated the last $100 in cash I had in my pocket. I gave it to the local Mental Health Clinic, so they could put gas into one of their volunteer vans to go pick up people in crisis and bring them to a halfway house for intervention.

Its bad out there and getting worse.. yet Congress sees fit to give $33 Billion in cash to fund the surge in Afghanistan? We need to fund projects here at home.. to stop the surge in homelessness and poverty for Americans!

What do you think?

I don't understand why you are relating either of these to "mental illness"?

So, statistically, they deal with all three more often.

women are more likely to be also dealing with abuse and homelessness.

It's not a "homeless = mentally ill" statement. It's more complicated than that.

You *do* know that only 16% of homeless people are "mentally ill", right?

This thread is linking the two in a very damaging way.

correct that everytime it is brought up.

16% of homeless people are "mentally ill".

SIXTEEN PERCENT.

It is waaaay past time to stop speaking of these two misfortunes in the same breath.

:shrug:

"But with Females.. homelessness and domestic violence are more prevalent in each case. "

And those "cases" were drunkenness and "mental illness".

Well first off, I think your post would make a good OP.

I think that we need to put more money into the real problems facing people each day - instead of throwing billions into wars. Wars which they tell us are waged to protect us from a threat that does not exist ,and even if it does is much less a threat to people than many other issues we face.

I think mental health care is woefully underfunded in this country and that it seems acceptable to discriminate and make fun of people with such issues.

I think it sucks, I think it is wrong, and I think that we stigmatize people for problems we can't see with our eyes (and therefore don't believe such exists).

I think we need to do more to help people with their issues that directly are affecting their lives instead of ones we think are (or we think should be) affecting them.

I think we need to listen to folks and hear what they are saying. Instead we let the media and the govt define our issues.

Prison and jail are atrocious alternatives for the mentally ill, but warehousing them in low grade "hospitals" and/or force-feeding them pharmaceuticals might be bad too. Long term recovery/remission rates of both approaches (as practiced by, say, Mississippi) might bear comparison.

I know that is an awful thought. The current situation seems kind of barbaric to me, and not necessarily just for the mentally ill.

On edit: I want to make it clear that I'm not saying prison or jail should ever be used for the mentally ill. I am saying that many states/locales might have approaches to mental illness that are also really bad, possibly permanently damaging. I am very wary of the long term effects of pharmacotherapy, for example, particularly for a population relegated to state care. There is a lot of opportunity for neglect and abuse in prison and in hospitals, for the mentally ill and for the misguided kid with a drug offense.

There is so much ignorance and misunderstanding about "treatment". I wish all on DU could have been to a conference I went to many years ago, of survivors of "treatment", talking about what they experienced. Anywone who would listen to these people without shedding a tear is hard-hearted, indeed.

Also, not too long ago on DU, there was a post of an article stating some of those dismal outcomes of standard "treatment". Said "treatment" set a lot of people on a downhill slide.

When I was studying psychology, we found that study after study showed that in treatment, 1/3 of people got better, one third of people remained the same, and one third of people got worse. Study after study.....

To cut the spending on social services.