Mental Health In Corrections

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Mental health in the corrections system has been a persistent problem since the dawn of incarceration. For a long period, before we knew about mental health disorders, people suffering from these diseases often ended up in prisons. In the 1840’s, a woman named Dorothea Dix began to investigate the treatment of mentally ill in the prison system. She soon urged for the creation of institutions that would house and treat mentally ill, rather than condemn them to jail cells. Dix succeeded, and up until the 1950’s most mentally ill individuals were held in mental health institutions. However, these institutions were often understaffed, underfunded, and many kept patients in poor living conditions. Therefore, beginning in the …show more content…
These programs direct individuals to “community-based mental health treatment,” (SAMHSA, 2006) rather than placing them in jails and prisons. They generally fall into one of two categories: pre-arrest and post-arrest. Pre-arrest programs (aka pre-booking programs) occur before the individual is officially enters the criminal justice system. This model relies on police officers to be gatekeepers for the mentally ill. Programs can include special units, enhanced training or simply transportation to mental health institutions. One example of this model program in the Tennessee Crisis Intervention Team. This is a group of police officers who have additional training in mental health. They are partnered with a local psychiatric unit that police officers can refer individuals to, rather than utilize arrest. (SAMHSA. …show more content…
General strain theory postulates that negative relationships with others cause an individual to participate in delinquency. According to Agnew, there are three types of strain that arise from negative relationships: “(1) prevent one from achieving positively valued goals, (2) remove or threaten to remove positively valued stimuli that one possesses, or (3) present or threaten to present one with noxious or negatively valued stimuli.” (StrainTheory) In other words, strain causes delinquency when a goal is not reached, when a positive aspect of one’s life is removed, or when an individual is exposed to negative persons or

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