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The Deinstitutionalizing of the mentally ill--a failure?
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<blockquote data-quote="donna723" data-source="post: 130466" data-attributes="member: 1883"><p>From my vantage point, as an employee of the prison system, I can tell you that a large percentage of the homeless mentally ill end up in jails and prisons. The county jails are hit or miss and some get no care at all. The ones who end up in a state prison system (at least ours) do get mental health care - not the greatest but better than none. While they're there, they are under the care of a psychiatrist, they receive medications and are closely monitored.</p><p> </p><p>BUT - we cannot keep them even one day longer than their sentence calls for. Even if our mental health staff <em>knows</em> that this person cannot function on their own and manage their own care, they are released and are back on the streets. They have no choice. There is no "transition", nowhere for them to go. Many have no families or no one to care for them. They're back out on the street with a two-week supply of their medications. They're expected to take their medications at the proper time, to seek psychiatric care on their own, to get their own medications, provide their own transportation, and manage their own care. The majority of them are completely incapable of doing this - even if they weren't "homeless", and especially once they're off their medications. It's almost inevitable - sooner or later they will be arrested again, and they're right back in the county jail or back in the prison system, and the cycle starts all over again. </p><p> </p><p>The "system" is doomed to failure as long as there are these huge gaps in mental health care. The prison sytem has been forced to take up the slack and many of these inmates are people who would have been cared for in the State mental hospitals in the past. Most of these people do not belong in jail or in prison - what they really needed was adequate mental health care, but there is nowhere else for them to go. And when they are released, they are given $75, a bus ticket and a two-week supply of their medications, and are then expected to manage their own lives and be self-sufficient! Is it any wonder that the "system" has failed so miserably!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="donna723, post: 130466, member: 1883"] From my vantage point, as an employee of the prison system, I can tell you that a large percentage of the homeless mentally ill end up in jails and prisons. The county jails are hit or miss and some get no care at all. The ones who end up in a state prison system (at least ours) do get mental health care - not the greatest but better than none. While they're there, they are under the care of a psychiatrist, they receive medications and are closely monitored. BUT - we cannot keep them even one day longer than their sentence calls for. Even if our mental health staff [I]knows[/I] that this person cannot function on their own and manage their own care, they are released and are back on the streets. They have no choice. There is no "transition", nowhere for them to go. Many have no families or no one to care for them. They're back out on the street with a two-week supply of their medications. They're expected to take their medications at the proper time, to seek psychiatric care on their own, to get their own medications, provide their own transportation, and manage their own care. The majority of them are completely incapable of doing this - even if they weren't "homeless", and especially once they're off their medications. It's almost inevitable - sooner or later they will be arrested again, and they're right back in the county jail or back in the prison system, and the cycle starts all over again. The "system" is doomed to failure as long as there are these huge gaps in mental health care. The prison sytem has been forced to take up the slack and many of these inmates are people who would have been cared for in the State mental hospitals in the past. Most of these people do not belong in jail or in prison - what they really needed was adequate mental health care, but there is nowhere else for them to go. And when they are released, they are given $75, a bus ticket and a two-week supply of their medications, and are then expected to manage their own lives and be self-sufficient! Is it any wonder that the "system" has failed so miserably! [/QUOTE]
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The Deinstitutionalizing of the mentally ill--a failure?
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