The Stigma Against The Wild Beast: Asylums And Wild Beast

Asylums and Wild Beast

As the stigma against the mentally ill grew, societies across the world began to remove them from the community. Insane asylums became the primary source of treatment for those with severe mental illnesses. While the intention was to alleviate the burden on society, these institutions were ramped with cruelty and mistreatment of those with mental illness. The cruelty endured by the mentally ill spanned well over a century and most of western society. Asylums locked up individual in overcrowded unsanitary condition. These individuals were often used as test subject without consent for some of the cruelest treatments of mental illness.

The first asylums began to appear in eighteenth century Europe. These were public institution

He purposed the Community Mental Health Care Act, and shortly after his death it was passed in to law. This act promised federal funding for mental healthcare outside of institutions and in the communities. These community programs were supposed to include both inpatient and outpatient care that focused on the treatment of the mental illnesses that were prevalent within that specific community. It also hoped to establish educational programs for the community as a whole. The hope was to reduce the number of individual in institutions, which at this time was nearly a million mentally ill and retarded individuals, and to provide more effective humane care on a smaller scale. With the promise of more efficiently run, treatment center facilities mentally ill individuals were released in to the

Those that could not function with in society because of their disordered behavior and symptoms associated with their disorder commonly ended up on the street, where these behaviors became a public nuisance. Many of these individuals also use illegal drugs in order to cope with some of their symptoms. As the criminal justice system cracked down on the use of illegal drugs, those with mental illness became a target. With no other recourse, jails and prison became the new institution. Many of these individuals are arrested for petty offenses such as urinating in public, that leads to minimal punishment and even fewer resources (Lurigio and Harris, 2007). Even when an individual with a mental illness commits a more severe crime, such as a felony, resources are still lacking for their treatment. The criminal justice system is not equipped to take care of those with mental disorders. Inmates are often medicated by forces without addressing other underlying issues (Lurigio and Harris,