Mental Health Care in Prisons: Inadequate and Detrimental - Essay Sample

Abstract

Specific Purpose: To inform the audience about mental health issues in the prison systems and how more funding needs in this area.

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Central Idea: The central purpose of my speech is to let the audience understand the danger of not having enough and complete appropriate health care, particularly emotional/mental health care, which is exceptionally detrimental to the incarcerated population.

Introduction

Although our community has built great strides over the past years working to lower the stigma that environs mental health and ways of obtaining appropriate care, most at-risk populations, particularly incarcerated individuals, are not offered such care as group counseling, individual counseling, or even a session with psychiatry. The National Response Framework refers to at-risk populations as members who might have an extra wants before, during, or after the events in functional regions, comprising but not sufficient to maintain independence, transportation, medical care, communication, and supervision. This previous summer, I had to write a term paper about Introduction to Social Welfare. I was a correctional nurse and have seen firsthand the mental health issues we face in our prison systems. I was captivated by the diverse at-risk population but was eventually intrigued by the incarcerated population (Bebbington et al., 2017). I spent more than five weeks collecting research, gathering an interview accompanied by a licensed social worker, editing and reviewing my paper, and a high score. The unreasonably rise in cases of mental disorders in correctional centers is connected to some factors: the extensive misconception that all individuals with mental conditions are harmful to the public; the general intolerance of most societies to disturbing or difficult behavior; lastly, the failure to enhance treatment, rehabilitation, and care, and, in addition to this poor or lack of access to related mental services in many nations. Most of these disorders might be before admission to the prison and might further be worsened by the stress concerning imprisonment. Hence, mental disorders might develop during the imprisonment period due to prevailing situations and possibly due to the effects of human rights violations or torture (Han, Compton, Blanco & Colpe, 2017). There is an underwhelming quality of mental health care readily accessible to the incarcerated population. Lastly, according to Mental Health America, six of ten states with at least availability to mental health care possess the highest incarceration figures. I hope to inform you of the significance of having timely access to mental health care to corrections centers.

The first main point in this section is to identify barriers to medication continuity and the Mental Health Treatment in correlation systems and how the people who live in institutionalized backgrounds addressed law offenders. In prisons, the inmate availability of mental and physical health care has been scarce despite the strict rules that need appropriate healthcare. Also, various motives that contribute to the lack of proper mental care include a short supply of psychiatrists and psychologists who can appropriately identify disorders and decline the correctional budget continually, which reduces the access to treatment of those inmates with only the critical mental settings (Jakobowitz et al., 2017). It has been displayed that at least three-quarters of women and no less than one-half of men in prisons show mental health circumstances. High risk for correctional failure of rehabilitation is accompanied to the people left with untreated mental health situations that relate right to a significant sum of physical assaults, disciplinary problems, and rule violations among those with mental instances of health disorders. When individuals become imprisoned, they lose their access to many aids, such as the insurance that protects the treatment medication. Individuals with dangerous mental health complications are at incredibly high risk by loss of prescription medication. Genetic nature may lead individuals to violent and unexpected outbursts. There has been an increase in diversion agendas, such as mental drug and health courts, to address those difficulties. After assessing, it is uncertain whether the courts only made things worse by imposing individuals to get help and not indeed out of their motive.

The second main point is that the prison requires being more trauma-informed. Prisons should be trauma-informed since the incarcerated population is mainly dealing with trauma-related disorders from their past, which entirely contains anything from their childhood straight to crime for their reasons in prison. Certain sounds, smell, language, and more can also trigger an individual and for the prison workers not to understand why a specific thing is disturbing someone so brutally is incredibly harmful not only to the person undergoing such trauma but also to other individuals who interact and socialize with this person daily. I feel that proper health care has been falling since Reagan Governance, where most cuts used to back mental healthcare in corrections centers (Han et al., 2017). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is defined as a situation of emotional stress and persistent mental occurrence as an outcome of severe psychological or injury, typically engagement in disturbance of sleep and constant intense recall of the skills, with dulled responses to others also globally.

The third point is that the incarceration encounters itself stances a challenge related to mental health treatment. Again, untreated mental health conditions are recognized to outcome in low alterations to life in these corrections centers. Furthermore, lack of privacy, crowded living quarters, solitary confinement, and the rise of risk-victimization with the centers have been classified as significantly correlate for adaptation challenges and self-harm for those affected by mental health disorders in prison backgrounds (Morrissey et al., 2016). Given the strong relationship among criminal behavior and mental health, the civil health structures have a vast deal to achieve from enhanced mental health treatment for inmates, specifically in lowering the costs related to high recidivism cases? Hence, a more multidimensional and holistic approach to treating and containing mental health situations in prison might lead to better results and reduced recidivism rates in the high-risk people. Transitional strategies on reintegration and release into society are essential to maintain the persuasive impacts of treatments that happen in the prison setting. I will leave you with this: From our founding fathers' saying, "all men are made equal." Therefore, we don't judge someone for the evidence that they wear a yellow jumpsuit and life behind bars. Besides, if you come across someone who set a choice you didn't approve with, you don't understand what other selections an individual had to choose.

Conclusion

In summary, the incarcerated population should have access to better health care, mostly mental health. The study points to one mutual theme: inmates will feel and behave in prison with convenient access to mental health care. In the coming days, I hope that more related research will be conducted, and again more individuals in the social and counseling field will sense lead to work with inmates or former prisoners.

References

Bebbington, P., Jakobowitz, S., McKenzie, N., Killaspy, H., Iveson, R., Duffield, G., & Kerr, M. (2017). Assessing needs for psychiatric treatment in prisoners: 1. Prevalence of disorder. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 52(2), 221-229. Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00127-016-1311-7.pdf

Han, B., Compton, W. M., Blanco, C., & Colpe, L. J. (2017). Prevalence, treatment, and unmet treatment needs of US adults with mental health and substance use disorders. Health affairs, 36(10), 1739-1747. Retrieved from: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/abs/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0584

Jakobowitz, S., Bebbington, P., McKenzie, N., Iveson, R., Duffield, G., Kerr, M., & Killaspy, H. (2017). Assessing needs for psychiatric treatment in prisoners: 2. Met and unmet need. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 52(2), 231-240. Retrived https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00127-016-1313-5.pdf

Morrissey, J. P., Domino, M. E., & Cuddeback, G. S. (2016). Expedited Medicaid enrollment, mental health service use, and criminal recidivism among released prisoners with severe mental illness. Psychiatric services, 67(8), 842-849. Retrieved from: https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ps.201500305