Recidivism In Prisons

441 Words1 Page

An estimated 650,000 offenders are released from prisons each year. Most generally leave with only a few dollars, some clothes, and possibly a bus ticket. Release practices like this are common and can be especially disastrous for mentally ill inmates. If immediately released without access to health care, the mentally ill will suffer from interruption of continuity of care. In prison, they may have been receiving medication, therapy, or other forms of treatment. Interruption of care could lead to excelled deterioration in their mental health. This tends to lead to a higher rate of recidivism among mentally-ill former prisoners. (Hummert, 2011.). A contributing factor of the lack of health care for released mentally ill inmates …show more content…

They may find it more difficult to get housing, obtain employment, and may have higher re-occurring substance abuse issues. Although, offenders without mental illness may face the same challenges, it is assumed that the mental disorder only adds to the increased chances of recidivism when unable to obtain necessities to be successful while living independently. Inadequacies in the very systems that are designed to assist in reintegration may actually exacerbate barriers faced by mentally ill offenders. An example of this is that many community-based advocacy and treatment programs are ill-prepared to meet the unique need of mentally disordered offenders. There also is issues with overloaded case managers and the lack of funding to increase staff positions. Specialized treatment programs are needed for mentally ill offenders. (Torgersen, 2013).One study conducted in a small New York State prison found that 64 percent of mentally ill offenders who were returned to the community were re-arrested and returned to prison within 18 months of release compared to 60 percent of offenders without a mental illness diagnoses (Hall, Miraglia, Lee,Chard-Wierschem, & Sawyer, 2012). While not a major difference in percentage rates the study does prove that prisoners with mental health diagnoses appear to be more prone to re-entry if they are unable to link with proper resources in the community. (Torgerson,

Show More
Related

  • Crazy Chapter Summary

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    Today, prisons are the nation’s primary providers of mental health care, and some do a better job than others. Pete Earley focuses his research on the justice system in Miami, Florida. He documents how the city’s largest prison has only one goal for their mentally ill prisoners: that they do not kill themselves. The prison has no specialized

    Read More

  • Ex-Offender Reentry Process

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    Policymakers on the national, state, and local levels are always finding ways to improve the nature of the reentry process. The reentry process starts in correctional facilities and helps inmates prepare themselves for release and proceeds with their transition back into society as law-abiding citizens. In comparison to the average American, ex-offenders tend to be less educated, less likely to gain employment, suffer from substance abuse, or have been diagnosed with a mental illness. All of these aspects discussed are shown to be risk factors for recidivism, which is the tendency that causes criminals to re-offend. Generally, the offender reintegration process needs to be improved by properly monitoring the outcomes for reentry programs in order to return prisoners back to society safely.

    Read More

  • Prison Transformation: A Study of Reformation and Recidivism

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    While living as an inmate in a prison, it is likely that one would go through some sort of transformation. While some go to prison and become reformed while showing the desire to change their life around, others may have a negative change. This negative change could include becoming more volatile and violent as a result of harsh prison treatment or prolonged isolation from the public. In a popular reality show, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, cast member Joe Giudice recently spoke of his plans for going to prison for tax fraud, saying “You either learn how to become a criminal, or a better person. So, I’m going to try to become a better person.” These differing changes can be seen in the prison writings of Robert Beck and Jack Henry Abbott.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Personality Disorders in Prisons

    2988 Words  | 6 Pages

    According to the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons (2013), there are currently 217,862 people incarcerated. Of that total population, 93.3% are men with the remaining 6.7% being women. The current prison populations range from 39-51% over their allotted capacities (James, 2013). Results of overcrowded prisons are seen through increased taxes, lowered staff to inmate ratio and an inability to maintain the structures housing these inmates (James, 2013). Researchers have also determined a correlation between inmate misconduct and overcrowding, adding to the list of negative effects (James, 2013). Along with increasing prison population rates, the diagnoses of mental illness, specifically personality disorders have also risen. The CDC reported in 2011 that at least 25% of US adults have a mental illness and about 20% of US adolescence has a diagnosable ment...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Mentally Ill People Who Commit Crimes

    1678 Words  | 4 Pages

    This creates the problem of a patient who is no longer psychotic, needing to remain in a hospital because the legal committee will not release him/her. The question whether the hospital is the proper place for that patient and if public safety is an actual concern is at hand. This then raises issues on how to treat a mentally ill individual who has committed a crime after recovering from their psychotic state, to ensure they will not relapse and become a danger to society. In various countries, there is no legal substitute for prevention. In the article, Mentally Ill People Who Commit Crimes: Punishment or Treatment, the author Dr. Melamed proposes the question, "If the individual is no longer ill, but still dangerous, should he or she remain in the hospital or be transferred to a nonmedical incarceration facility?" While some believe treatment is a better alternative, society is unable to bear the costs of treatment/ rehabilitation which means the individual will be transferred to an incarceration facility. In Connecticut, annually, the average cost for an inmate is $33,000 while the average cost for a mental hospital is $500,000. However, psychiatrist cost more than the average prison guards, the additional $467, 000 does not out way the cost for continued treatment in an outpatient facility

    Read More

  • Mentally Ill Inmates

    1660 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wouldn’t it be completely irrational to sentence every mentally ill individual to jail purely because they suffered from a mental illness? Often, mentally ill people behave in an eccentric manner and allure the attention of police officers who do not differentiate the mentally ill from mentally stable people and immediately charge them with misdemeanors. There are approximately 300,000 inmates, with the number increasing every year, which suffer from a mental illness and do not receive proper treatment. Jails are not adequately equipped to care for mentally ill inmates, which can lead to an escalation of an inmate’s illness. Society has failed to provide enough social resources for citizens suffering from psychiatric illnesses in its community, transferring mentally unstable individuals between mental institutions and jails, when in fact adequate aid such as providing proper medication, rehabilitation opportunities, and more psychiatric hospitals in communities is a necessity to reconstitute these individuals.

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects Of Solitary Prisonation In Prisons

    1427 Words  | 3 Pages

    Thousands of people statewide are in prisons, all for different reasons. However, the amount of mental illness within prisons seems to go unaddressed and ignored throughout the country. This is a serious problem, and the therapy/rehabilitation that prison systems have do not always help those who are mentally ill. Prison involvement itself can contribute to increased suicide (Hills, Holly). One ‘therapy’ that has increased throughout the years has been the use of solitary confinement, which has many negative effects on the inmates.

    Read More

  • The Criminal Justice System And Mental Illness

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prior to taking this course, I generally believed that people were rightly in prison due to their actions. Now, I have become aware of the discrepancies and flaws within the Criminal Justice system. One of the biggest discrepancies aside from the imprisonment rate between black and white men, is mental illness. Something I wished we covered more in class. The conversation about mental illness is one that we are just recently beginning to have. For quite a while, mental illness was not something people talked about publicly. This conversation has a shorter history in American prisons. Throughout the semester I have read articles regarding the Criminal Justice system and mental illness in the United States. Below I will attempt to describe how the Criminal Justice system fails when they are encountered by people with mental illnesses.

    Read More

  • The Criminalization of the Mentally Ill

    3759 Words  | 8 Pages

    The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Imprisonment

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    The problem with incarcerating the mentally ill people is the way health care workers, sheriff and prison officers treat psychiatric patients

    Read More

  • Overrepresentation In Jails

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

    Moore and Virginia Hilday (2006) conducted a research study on the effectiveness of mental health courts, they compared the recidivism rate among mentally ill offenders that that attended mental health courts to mentally ill offenders that attended traditional criminal courts. They found that defendants that attended mental health courts had an approximate 50% lower re-arrest rate than defendants that attended traditional criminal courts. Defendants that fully completed the mental health courts programs had a less than one fourth re-arrest rate of defendants that attended traditional criminal courts. (Moore, Hiday, 2006) Therefore, their findings clearly suggest that mental health courts significantly reduce the recidivism rate, especially when defendants fully complete the mental health court

    Read More

  • Sexual Abuse To Prison Pipeline

    933 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mental Health is something that millions of people struggle with daily, but find treatment and coping methods to help them get through it. However, incarcerated people do not have this ‘luxury’ of getting help with their mental illnesses. Mental health in prison is a very broad topic that encompasses many aspects. Because of the immensity of this topic, my group broke it down into treatments, social programs, sexual abuse to prison pipeline, pre-screening, and the effects of solitary confinement.

    Read More

  • Criminals and Society: The Battle Between Reintegration and Recidivism

    3252 Words  | 7 Pages

    This research paper is focused on released convicts and the struggles they face to become active, progressive members of society. Sadly, these released offenders regularly face discrimination in their job searches, in attempts to secure housing for themselves and their families, and to be accepted by their communities. Without the right support structures in place upon their release, these former prisoners may very well fall back into lives of crime. Without a suitable place to stay, these released offenders may become recidivists, falling back into their familiar roles as law breakers, if only to provide the basic necessities for themselves and their families. Statistically, more than one third of released offenders end up back in jail within a year of their initial release. Through this study, I hoped to shed light on some of the main causes of criminal recidivism using Labeling Theory and Social Learning Theory.

    Read More

  • Prison Cost

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although providing healthcare for a prisoner sounds costly, it is important to provide treatment and rehabilitation for those with mental and physical illnesses. Some of the health care services that the prison provides for its inmates is, “administration, medical care, dental care, mental health care, pharmaceuticals, hospitalization, and substance abuse treatment.” 3 Although it seems excessive to provide these kinds of services for those who have committed crimes, According to PEW trusts, “prisoners have a constitutional right to adequate medical attention and concluded that the Eighth Amendment is violated when corrections officials display “deliberate indifference” to an inmate’s medical needs. ”3 There should be a clear balance of recognizing that these are people who have committed crimes, so why give them better health benefits than most Americans receive. There needs to be a better way to reduce spending, without jeopardizing an inmates health and safety.

    Read More

  • Reducing Recidivism Rates

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    The United States is leading the world in the number of people incarcerated in prisons. Mass incarceration has become a topic of debate with an estimated 2.3 million people behind bars. All states combined spend over 52 billion on corrections and correction related activities annually (Gorgol & Sponsler, 2011). The US justice system has placed a great deal of focus on locking people up without equally focusing on how to prevent people from revolving in and out of the prison's doors creating an unbalanced system. What can reduce the recidivism rates and help incarcerated individuals successfully reenter society? Higher education is at the forefront of ways to reduce recidivism, and it

    Read More

More about Recidivism In Prisons

Open Document