Solving Mental Illness

It is not commonly known that one in five people in Ohio’s state prisons is mentally ill. That is more than 10,500 people in Ohio prisons who have been diagnosed with a mental illness. It is even more staggering that those inmates outnumber Ohio’s psychiatric hospital population by ten (Johnson). With those statistics, one would assume that prisons in Ohio can provide better treatment than the psychiatric hospitals of Ohio could. However, that assumption could not be more wrong; studies have shown that prisons only deteriorate the mental state of the troubled detainees placed in them. So, why are so many mentally ill people being placed in a system that hurts them, and how can these people be helped?

Two possible issues could be at play here. Mentally ill people are not being treated, so they commit crimes that they can not control. Additionally, delinquents are suffering in the prison system as their mental health regresses, which is not the purpose of incarceration. With both of these possibilities affecting the people in Ohio, many citizens could be at risk. In order to help more mentally ill people, stop crimes that could easily be prevented and assure that delinquents that are not hurt more by the prison system, some changes need to be made. Psychological evaluations should be encouraged starting in seventh grade. To enforce this, these screenings would be needed to start school, just like vaccines. To continue enforcing this, psych screenings should be required to be eligible for insurance, welfare, Medicaid, legal possession of firearms, and any state-licensed ID. The fees for the psych evaluations will be paid for by insurance, or the state of Ohio will foot the bill if a patient is uninsured.

A common argument against citizens’ right to possess firearms is that they are readily available to anyone, even the mentally ill. While this is the case, it should not be. For instance, in Ohio, fugitives from justice, those convicted of a violent felony, those convicted for drug charges, those dependent on drugs or alcohol, and those who are mentally incompetent cannot legally own firearms (Findlaw.com). Also, people purchasing guns from licensed dealers are subject to background checks through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System [NICS]. The problem with this system is that it does not effectively cover the mentally incompetent, which is defined as “the inability of a person to make or carry out important decisions regarding his or her affairs,” (USlegal.com). This is because the mentally incompetent are not being identified or treated until they commit a crime or another act that is caused by their condition.

Obviously, these people who are mentally incompetent may pose a threat to law-abiding citizens if they are not treated, and that is usually the case. Typically, people with mental illnesses have higher rates of arrest because their untreated behavior causes conflicts with the law. Additionally, those who have mental illness have fewer chances of receiving probation or community treatment, because the judges cannot be sure that these criminals will not repeat their past behaviors. Prison is usually the only option left.

Once the ill convicts reach prison, they are put in the same cell blocks as the general population. Eventually, the loud environment that a prison can start to take effect on the prisoners with anxiety issues and conditions like schizophrenia. When the symptoms of these conditions are bad enough, those suffering from them may lash out at prison staff or other inmates, landing them in a segregated cell, known as solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is the “method of choice in U.S. prisons for anyone demonstrating perceived or misunderstood mental illness.” (Medina). An estimation of almost a third of inmates in solitary confinement is psychotic in various ways.

For instance, the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio, has a mentally ill-population that makes up 41% of the 2,510 inmates there (Johnson). One prisoner, Quiana Froe, age thirty-five, had a mental breakdown during a previous sentence, landing her in a segregation unit. While in solitary, Froe stated that she heard voices calling to her through the vents in her cell. After she was eventually released from prison, her condition did not improve; Froe blames her untreated illness for her next sentence (Johnson).

How can these problems be fixed? Ideally, the Ohio prison system would scrap solitary confinement, because “It has been shown that the conditions of these secure housing units have severe mental and psychological effects on prisoners.” (“Solitary Confinement”). Instead, implement a type of separation from the general population, but do not make it solitary. Of course, many of the recreational activities should be removed, along with access to the commissary. This ensures that a punishment is still being given. The prisoners kept here, however, will have plenty of social contact with other inmates in the same area and the guards assigned to that cell block. The social connection will still have a place in these new punishment units, so mental illness should theoretically develop less. In addition, prisons must be able and ready to provide those who are showing signs of mental illness with the proper counseling and medication.

Although this is a start, just that solution will not help the free citizens in Ohio that may also be having mental issues. As previously stated, untreated mental illness may lead to conflict with the law, but almost nobody seems to be worried about mentally unhealthy people until serious symptoms start to show; very few preventative measures are taken. Maris Medina, a writer with The Diamondback, an independent student newspaper from the University of Maryland, wrote about the struggles the mentally ill in the judicial system face in “Prison isn’t the for Mentally Ill Criminals.” In this article, Medina stated that she attended the court hearing of a man who had a criminal record of seventeen past offenses, this time he was accused of stealing a package from his neighbor’s porch. Normally, a person previously convicted of seventeen crimes would face jail again, but the judge stated that jail time would cause his mental health to deteriorate further (Medina). Cases like this should be preventable. Mentally ill people should not be left alone to deal with this by themselves.

Unfortunately, few types of tests are done to find serious mental illness that may manifest itself in a person before any incidents. Currently, in Ohio, the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire depression test is offered to all patients, but it is very brief. Not only that, but it can also be self-administered (“Treating Depression Anxiety”), so if patients do not want to come to terms with their condition,

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