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Like Dr. Nasrallah wrote in his October editorial (“Psychiatry and the politics of incarceration,” Current Psychiatry, October 2012, p. 4-5; http://bit.ly/1JWYa87), I, too, was distressed to learn of Dorothea Dix Hospital’s closing.
I am employed at a large county jail and see the deplorable state of our mental health system. There are only 401 psychiatric beds in Nevada; at the Clark County Detention Center we have 500 inmates taking psychotropics. A Nevada resident with a mental illness is 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than cared for in a hospital. I found the funding and treatment of mentally ill individuals in Moldova (formerly part of the Soviet Union) to be superior to ours.
Too often mentally ill persons are brought to jail for minor charges, such as trespassing or jaywalking. They may have more charges added such as assaulting another inmate or an officer. As a result of their mental illness, not taking medications, and poor judgment, they have problems adjusting to incarceration. This vicious cycle means they will be in jail longer and may even receive a prison sentence. If you have never seen the heartbreaking effects on a seriously mentally ill (SMI) or mentally retarded person placed in a jail cell, this scenario may be hard to understand.
It saddens me that the only difference in the treatment of the mentally ill today from Dorothea Dix’s time is that we are not charging admission fees to see “crazy people” in jail. Why the entire country continues to cut mental health budgets is a mystery. It should be no surprise that with the decrease in psychiatric beds there is an increase in SMI individuals in jails. I do not understand why the politics of incarceration cannot be turned around to where we are treating, not punishing, the mentally ill.
It’s quite easy to write about the injustice; the difficult and the right action is to make the needed change happen.
Virginia Singer, DNP, PMHNP, BCClark County Detention CenterLas Vegas, NV
Like Dr. Nasrallah wrote in his October editorial (“Psychiatry and the politics of incarceration,” Current Psychiatry, October 2012, p. 4-5; http://bit.ly/1JWYa87), I, too, was distressed to learn of Dorothea Dix Hospital’s closing.
I am employed at a large county jail and see the deplorable state of our mental health system. There are only 401 psychiatric beds in Nevada; at the Clark County Detention Center we have 500 inmates taking psychotropics. A Nevada resident with a mental illness is 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than cared for in a hospital. I found the funding and treatment of mentally ill individuals in Moldova (formerly part of the Soviet Union) to be superior to ours.
Too often mentally ill persons are brought to jail for minor charges, such as trespassing or jaywalking. They may have more charges added such as assaulting another inmate or an officer. As a result of their mental illness, not taking medications, and poor judgment, they have problems adjusting to incarceration. This vicious cycle means they will be in jail longer and may even receive a prison sentence. If you have never seen the heartbreaking effects on a seriously mentally ill (SMI) or mentally retarded person placed in a jail cell, this scenario may be hard to understand.
It saddens me that the only difference in the treatment of the mentally ill today from Dorothea Dix’s time is that we are not charging admission fees to see “crazy people” in jail. Why the entire country continues to cut mental health budgets is a mystery. It should be no surprise that with the decrease in psychiatric beds there is an increase in SMI individuals in jails. I do not understand why the politics of incarceration cannot be turned around to where we are treating, not punishing, the mentally ill.
It’s quite easy to write about the injustice; the difficult and the right action is to make the needed change happen.
Virginia Singer, DNP, PMHNP, BCClark County Detention CenterLas Vegas, NV
Like Dr. Nasrallah wrote in his October editorial (“Psychiatry and the politics of incarceration,” Current Psychiatry, October 2012, p. 4-5; http://bit.ly/1JWYa87), I, too, was distressed to learn of Dorothea Dix Hospital’s closing.
I am employed at a large county jail and see the deplorable state of our mental health system. There are only 401 psychiatric beds in Nevada; at the Clark County Detention Center we have 500 inmates taking psychotropics. A Nevada resident with a mental illness is 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than cared for in a hospital. I found the funding and treatment of mentally ill individuals in Moldova (formerly part of the Soviet Union) to be superior to ours.
Too often mentally ill persons are brought to jail for minor charges, such as trespassing or jaywalking. They may have more charges added such as assaulting another inmate or an officer. As a result of their mental illness, not taking medications, and poor judgment, they have problems adjusting to incarceration. This vicious cycle means they will be in jail longer and may even receive a prison sentence. If you have never seen the heartbreaking effects on a seriously mentally ill (SMI) or mentally retarded person placed in a jail cell, this scenario may be hard to understand.
It saddens me that the only difference in the treatment of the mentally ill today from Dorothea Dix’s time is that we are not charging admission fees to see “crazy people” in jail. Why the entire country continues to cut mental health budgets is a mystery. It should be no surprise that with the decrease in psychiatric beds there is an increase in SMI individuals in jails. I do not understand why the politics of incarceration cannot be turned around to where we are treating, not punishing, the mentally ill.
It’s quite easy to write about the injustice; the difficult and the right action is to make the needed change happen.
Virginia Singer, DNP, PMHNP, BCClark County Detention CenterLas Vegas, NV