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.

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...Tracy

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