Over the years people who had mental disabilities were not always treated like human beings. The mistreatment of people in psychiatric hospitals stayed relatively the same from the 1900’s until around the 1950s and 60s. The mentally disabled had very different treatment, perception, and rights than what they have now. There have been laws put in place in order to let the mentally disabled have more rights to their treatment and education. One psychiatric institution that dehumanized its patients was the Pennhurst Insane Asylum. According to Emily Smith Beitiks (2012), “3,500 patients were living in Pennhurst with only 600 workers to assist them.” With this low amount of workers it was very hard for patients to get the treatment they deserved. …show more content…
His name was Kenneth B. Klein (1969) and he wrote about his experience. He wrote about when he first got there and the feelings he had within the first night. Nobody talked to him and soon he stated, “I was beginning to feel dead. And lonely, terribly lonely. (1969)” Klein hadn’t even been in the institution for 24 hours and he already wrote about feeling dead. The rest of his experience consisted of people sitting in chairs and when they were fed at dinner or lunchtime, the nurses would have to feed multiple people at a time. Klein’s experienced helped with an understanding of what patients feel like and the neglect that they would receive throughout the day. Patients would experience neglect but a lot of mentally disabled people did not have any rights in these institutions. One right that was taken away from these patients is that they were sterile. The hospital would make them unable to have children through sterilization. Scott wrote, “Under eugenic sterilization laws in effect in many states, retarded persons were routinely sterilized without their consent or knowledge. (1986)” Patients with mental disabilities would become sterile and the hospital wouldn’t even tell the patient. As you can see little amount of rights were given to these …show more content…
Laws were put in place in order for facilities to be adequate for care along with proper treatment of patients. Prior to late 1950s and 60s people with mental disabilities had little protection under the law. Finally, in 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was enacted. This law was what mentally challenged individuals needed in order to get the services, like education, that they needed. Gargiulo stated that in the year 1990, “Probably the most significant civil rights legislation affecting individuals with disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (PL 101-336) was signed into law…(2015)” This law allows people with all kinds of disabilities not be discriminated against when trying to find a job or public
During the 1960’s, America’s solution to the growing population of mentally ill citizens was to relocate these individuals into mental state institutions. While the thought of isolating mentally ill patients from the rest of society in order to focus on their treatment and rehabilitation sounded like a smart idea, the outcome only left patients more traumatized. These mental hospitals and state institutions were largely filled with corrupt, unknowledgeable, and abusive staff members in an unregulated environment. The story of Lucy Winer, a woman who personally endured these horrors during her time at Long Island’s Kings Park State Hospital, explores the terrific legacy of the mental state hospital system. Ultimately, Lucy’s documentary, Kings
In the Earley book, the author started to talk about the history of mental illness in prison. The mentally ill people were commonly kept in local jails, where they were treated worse than animals. State mental hospitals were typically overcrowded and underfunded. Doctors had very little oversight and often abused their authority. Dangerous experimental treatments were often tested on inmates.
The Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 set out to end the discrimination people with disabilities encounter. The Act gave disabled people the right to employment, access to goods, facilities, and services and the right to buy and rent land and property. These rights came into force in December 1996, making treating a disabled person less favorably than an able-bodied person unlawful. Further rights came into force in October 1999, including the idea that service providers should consider making reasonable adjustments to the way they deliver their services so that people with a disability can use them. (The DDA...) However, despite these
The 1930s was a tough time for all of the mentally ill people. They were not treated the way that they do now. The mentally ill were called names like satans child, or they were not expected or very frowned upon in many religions. So because of all of the people who were mentally ill they started to create asylums. With these asylums they could hold almost all of the mentally ill people during that time. All of the asylums were overcrowded and sometimes there would be around 1 million patients. WIth all of the people in these asylums the staff and doctors became very understaffed so the patients living within the asylums were not treated how they should have been. Then doctors had found ways that they thought could cure these mentally ill people, whether it would be cruel to them or not. The treatments ran from major brain surgery to taking baths for multiple days.
In the 1800’s people with mental illnesses were frowned upon and weren't treated like human beings. Mental illnesses were claimed to be “demonic possessions” people with mental illnesses were thrown into jail cells, chained to their beds,used for entertainment and even killed. Some were even slaves, they were starved and forced to work in cold or extremely hot weather with chains on their feet. Until 1851, the first state mental hospital was built and there was only one physician on staff responsible for the medical, moral and physical treatment of each inmate. Who had said "Violent hands shall never be laid on a patient, under any provocation.
“The Great Depression was a worldwide economic slump of the 1930’s” (Fetzer; p.338). The Great Depression caused a catastrophic amount of grief and distress for the citizens of the United States. Some of these citizens, however, faced more problems which caused grief and distress than others. Among those citizens were the mentally ill. During the era of the Great Depression, the mentally handicapped were treated unfairly in almost every aspect of their lives; this included how society treated them, how they were treated medically, and even how their personal lives were affected.
Asylums were thought of as a best place for the mentally ill in the 1900s, but over the years stories of abuses lead people to use drugs and outpatient care instead of sending the insane to asylums. In 1955, nearly 560,000 patients were put in mental hospitals, however, there are now only 35,000 in the twentieth century. There has been a ninety percent decrease in mental health facilities (Campbell 1). In the past, there were no asylums or institutions for the insane to be sent, so they were thrown in jail and were treated as criminals. Dorothea Dix could not stand the unfair treatment and took upon herself to spread mental hospitals around the world. Throughout Dorothea Lynde Dix’s life, she was sedulous to helping people; she built an academy
Movies and shows like, “Girl Interrupted” and “American Horror Story: Insane Asylum” portray hospitals in a way that has truth to it, however they portray the people in a negative way. It has become more known to society that the hospitals that the mentally ill are subjected to living in are not a good place to be. However, the stigma that mentally ill people are dangerous and cannot overcome their illness is still widely
For many decades the mentally ill or insane have been hated, shunned, and discriminated against by the world. They have been thrown into cruel facilities, said to help cure their mental illnesses, where they were tortured, treated unfairly, and given belittling names such as retards, insane, demons, and psychos. However, reformers such as Dorothea Dix thought differently of these people and sought to help them instead. She saw the inhumanity in these facilities known as insane asylums or mental institutions, and showed the world the evil that wandered inside these asylums. Although movements have been made to improve conditions in insane asylums, and were said to help and treat the mentally ill, these brutally abusive places were full of disease and disorder, and were more like concentration camps similar to those in Europe during WWII than hospitals.
As time goes on, the law has put more emphasis on facility just like Bridgewater State Hospital in which many of the actions of the facility workers can face legal consequences such as facing prison time, fines, lawsuits, and etc. Society has a better understanding of why certain people act the way that they do and being more knowledgeable about psychology and mental diseases allows us to have a different approach when dealing with these topics or these individuals. In today’s era, there are many normal individuals who are willing to stand up for those who do not have a voice of their own. I believe that this change in one’s ability to stand up for another individual or group of individuals is what brought about change to the medical environment of those who are mentally
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
Corrigan, Watson and Ottati (2003) argue this strong stigma has legitimized a historically inequitable system of treatment for those with mental illness. As far back as the Middle Ages, the mentally ill were sent to prisons because they were perceived as dangerous. Beginning in the 19th century, they were transitioned to asylums and hospitals due to the widely held belief that they were not only dangerous, but also i...
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one of the most significant laws in American History. Before the ADA was passed, employers were able to deny employment to a disabled worker, simply because he or she was disabled. With no other reason other than the person's physical disability, they were turned away or released from a job. The ADA gives civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. The act guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications. The ADA not only opened the door for millions of Americans to get back into the workplace, it paved the road for new facilities in the workplace, new training programs, and created jobs designed for a disabled society (Frierson, 1990). This paper will discuss disabilities covered by the ADA, reasonable accommodations employers must take to accommodate individuals with disabilities, and the actions employers can take when considering applicants who have disabilities.
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) protects individuals with disabilities from discrimination based upon their disability (Bennett-Alexander, 2001). The protection extends to discrimination in a broad range of activities, including public services, public accommodations and employment. The ADA's ban against disability discrimination applies to both private and public employers in the United States.
Some of the issues with incarcerating mentally ill patients for long periods of time include: jail/prison overcrowding that results from mentally ill inmates remaining behind bars longer than other prisoners, behavioral problems that are disturbing to other prisoners and correctional staff, physical attacks on correctional staff and other prisoners, deterioration in the psychiatric condition of inmates with mental illness as they go without the treatment, solitary confinement, which worsens symptoms of mental illness. (Cite Source 1 here) NOT Plagirised