Mentally Ill Stereotypes

Imagine walking down the street minding your own business. Looking at the clouds, paying attention to the different shapes of trees and listening to the sounds of birds communicating to each other. You notice something unrelated to nature that seems to follow you wherever you go; the stares from other people and the feeling of judgment. The reaction that your presence has on another person. You automatically create a deeper issue within yourself and of the reactions of others around you. Mentally ill individuals are in a constant battle with themselves and with the others around them because of the negative connotations that they receive for being something other than what “normal” is supposed to be. Being a criminal, however, also has an enormous amount of negatively surrounding an individual. People with mental disorders have historically been at greater risk for incarceration relative to the general population, in part because of stereotypes and misconceptions about what it means to live with certain mental disorders. Disproving stereotypes about the incarcerated mentally ill can raise awareness of the treatment of people with mental disorders who are incarcerated.
It becomes a bigger problem when an individual identifies with both having a mental disorder and a criminal. In a …show more content…
These mental hospitals were specifically reserved for individuals that had severe mental illnesses that at the time included “schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and major depression” (Torrey, Kennard, Eslinger, Lamb Pavle,2010). Due to Dorothea 's efforts, a survey done in 1880 in the United States indicated that “40,942 insane persons were in hospitals and asylums for the insane while finding only 397 insane persons in jails and prisons” (Torrey,et al.,2010) In 1955, the number of mentally ill people in state mental hospital was at its highest at 560,000.