According to current lit, about 16% of all folks in the criminal justice system are mentally ill. I thought the membership would appreciate a brief overview of the topic. Ever seen those beggars on street corners? A lot of them are criminally insane, and between layovers in state hospitals and prisons...

Treatment of the criminally insane has a long and illustrious history. From roots of chains and torture, modern treatment for the criminally insane, well, hasn’t gone all that far......

some articles of treatment of the criminally insane

overview of a criminally ill population and some treatment types

http://www.geocities.com/stargazers_here/mental_illness.html

how mentally ill are integrated with the prison population

http://www.drc.state.oh.us/web/Articles/article70.htm

mentally ill and the criminal justice system, written by a state supreme court judge

http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/ACMIC/resources/solutions.pdf

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...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Are there no workhouses? Are there no orphanages?

Here's a suggestion:

Release all non-violent drug offenders to parole/probation. Use those dollars saved to hire and train the necessary personnel for an inter-correctional treatment program. One rehabilitated, they can be released and become contributing members of society.

There are several venues for treatment of mentally ill. Young kids with problems visit or live at local children’s homes. They are in almost every city of significant population. Most folks see these places and have no idea what they are for. Many think they are for orphans or for treatment young people with physical trauma. When they get beyond a certain age, which I think is 16 or 18 residents of these facilities will go to either private mental hospitals (private money funded) or state paid hospitals, or state prisons.

There are 2 issues here with the first being treatment of folks with mental disorders, and the 2nd, being treatment of folks with mental disorders that are also perceived as criminal. Ironically while many of the treatments are the same, the location or venue where the treatment takes place varies due to a) staffing or b) local perceptions of how to treat these folks. Often times the location pre-determines the outcome. The standard of care is naturally a combination of therapy by drugs, and various means of getting the population to integrate with the broader population in either the prison or the hospital. The amazing thing to me is that the chief cause of failure of folks with disorders is simply failing to take meds. Why? When the setting is a prison, often meds are stolen by the general population. In turn this causes the “vic” to revert to previous behaviors. Were many of these folks not in a prison setting the chief cause of failure would almost disappear.

Another element of treatment is that it is still often more harsh than mere prison life. Dosages are frequently, but not commonly over administered (a zombie population is a non-combative population) and, naturally if you can’t defend yourself in a prison you become a target for all sorts of cruel behavior. Patients/inmates have all the normal rigors of prison life, plus their ADLs are much more restrictive than general populations, plus of course they carry a social stigma where even rapist and murders and paper jackers look down on them and often abuse them physically and, naturally sexually. Combine this kind of rehab with someone who has processing problems to begin with and you get a means to a revolving door. Of course this wouldn’t be nearly as horrific as sentencing someone who has mental disorders to prison with no treatment.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Agreed and related to this is that marijuana use in particular is treated as felony in many states with appropriate imprisonment. Speaking of psychotic treatment, as opposed to treatment of the psychotic, it strikes me as one of the worst horrors of our time that our government threatens to imprison over 20 million Americans because they smoke marijuana.

Our prison reform system is a miss-guided form of warehousing and torturing people that harkens back centuries, and itself so thickly deviant that it causes people and culture more problems than it ever eliminates.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

What/Where is the hope?

Not an answer El P but interesting.....

psychopaths

http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/narcissism/antisocial_sociopath_psychopath.html

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Who's gonna pay?

You don't strike me as a liberal, but I ask based on this statement. Who's gonna pay?

You can thank Ronald Reagan for releasing so many psycho's and people with mental disorders out to the streets because of $.

These people need help... and I am up for gov't funding through taxes. What are you going to do with people with mental illness? Kill them? Put them in jails? Deport them?

Think of this way.. those people who are truely mentally ill and don't know whats going most of the time as a fellow brother or sister. Would you kick them out to the curb? The gov't... through our help ($).. should act more of a "care taker" for those who can't take care of themselves.

just my 2 cents...

Reagan was sent to hospital because of Vince Foster's collusion with LBJ and the French.

You whoooo? VD?

I think I get your point.

My question was really directed at where the money will need to come from to pay to house/incarcerate/rehabilitate the criminally insane for the rest of their lives.

From the articles Tracy posted, there are folks pushing to hire/train/expand the staff necessary to attempt to treat the mentally disturbed that are currently in custody. I suspect that *some* are salvageable and can become productive, taxpaying members of society.

Based on your answer, I get the impression that you want to lock them up and throw away the key (or have them shot).

Back to my question. Who is going to pay to keep those people in jail/prison for life? Should the government just raise taxes to accomplish this?

Now that I see this I can understand el presidente’s who pays thought, and John TV – emotionally disturbed homeless girls, John TV, el presidente – it’s all starting to come togeather. To expensive – your right, just put them in a van, pipe in the exhaust and go drive around in the woods for a while

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89 300E
79 240D
72 Westy
63 Bug sunroof
85 Jeep CJ7
86 Chevy 6.2l diesel PU

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
Marcus Aurelius

Those guys were just in for Solicitation.

THIS GUY is in for Murder....