Confinement In Prison

The article that I chose to read was “Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness is the U.S prisons: A Challenge for Medical Ethics” by Metzner and Fellner. The main point that is consistent throughout the article is that solitary confinement has negative psychotic effects on prisoners especially those with pre-existing mental illness. These effects including anxiety, depression, and even paranoia as would be expected of being confined in a small cell completely alone. In the article it strongly advocates that there needs to be adjustments to jail’s policies and how as a nation we should not be letting a prisoner’s basic human rights be denied. It also talks about physicians specifically should have an active role in advocating for their “patients” …show more content…
The topic especially in this article is focused on what is going on within the prison walls. I remember hearing stories of how badly some prisoners had been mistreated and there was a misuse of power (some often heard in women’s prison with male guards). This type of behavior makes the guards no better than the prisoners; They are prisoners not rag dolls. The oversight over such behavior is one that should constantly be watched and corrected if need be. Which brings me to another point is having a good staff is just as important as having enough that staff that can help run the prison. In the article it talked about how there are not enough qualified staff to deal with the mentally ill people in particular. That is at fault of the government and not giving a sufficient amount of funding for staff at a crucial institute of the state. Also for many working in a prison can be a stressful environment where a worker will have to be able to handle an assortment of personalities of convicted criminals. A couple of concerns I do have is why there are not more psychologists willing to volunteer their time and evaluate these prisoners over long periods of times. This would give them a stronger case to bring in more physicians and even get the funding to do so. I also am curious about how mentally ill people make into jail in the first place. Usually in many cases the defendants will plead insanity if their client is mentally unstable, therefore their actions were not really in their control. Also you’d have a psychologist that does an evaluation and would agree that person needs to be committed and not sent to prison. There are so many steps for a prisoner to actually receive a sentence and how is it that a truly mentally ill person slips through that many processes. I believe there are a lot of things to consider in the case of mentally ill people incarceration