JAILS AND PRISONS - THE NEW ASYLUMS: : Melbourne Indymedia

Inside the "new asylums"
prisons crammed with
the mentally ill.

Nearly 500,000 mentally ill men and women are now locked up in America's jails and prisons. That's 10 times the number who remain in its psychiatric hospitals.

In a system that's custom-built for security and punishment, not treatment, ill-equipped jailers double as caretakers of a burgeoning population of schizophrenic, paranoid and psychotic prisoners.

For many mentally ill people, prisons have become first and last option. The old safety net has gone. As psychiatric hospitals shut down, patients went onto the streets and became a policing problem, then a corrections problem.

The system has begun to feed on itself.

The courts now look to jails and prisons as the best chance of providing any treatment. "When you know the courts are more apt to send a person to prison because they're going to get treated, there's something disconcerting about that," observes the U.S. state of Ohio's Corrections chief, Reginald Wilkinson.

While the U.S. is the focus of this program, the issues it raises resonate loudly in Australia where mental health agencies estimate nearly half of the prison population suffers mental illness.

Authorities in the American state of Ohio, allowed cameras to go deep inside a jail system warehousing thousands of mentally ill prisoners. With unprecedented access to therapy and treatment sessions, crisis wards and prison disciplinary tribunals.

"THE NEW ASYLUMS": this PBS Frontline film starkly portrays how society has failed the mentally ill will be aired on Four Corners Monday night June 20, 2005 at 8:30 PM (AEST).

Basic Description of Mental Illness:

Any of various conditions characterised by impairment of an individual's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioural functioning, and caused by social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors, such as infection or head trauma. Also called emotional illness, mental disease, mental disorder.

Basic Description of Mental Retardation:

Mental retardation is defined differently than mental illness. Retardation is indicated by sub-normal intellectual development as a result of congenital causes, brain injury, or disease and characterised by any of various cognitive deficiencies, including impaired learning, social, and vocational ability. Also called mental deficiency.

Common Mental Illnesses of Prisoners, including of Prisoners on Death Row: Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia, Suicide.

******************************************
AUSTRALIAN COALITION AGAINST DEATH PENALTY
© ACADP Incorporated ®

http://www.ACADP.com
http://www.ACADP.org
http://www.ACADP.net

******************************************
The Premier Australian Internet
Resource on Capital Punishment

Related:

Submission to Senate Inquiry into Mental Health 2005

Justice Action makes this submission largely addressing one term of reference only (see below). We appreciate that the urgent issues of Human Rights and other abuses including institutionalisation and the use of force, and the lack of progress on Burdekin are being examined by the Committee.

More: http://www.geocities.com/publik15/archive1/SSIMH.pdf

Review of the Mental Health Act 1990

Indigenous Social Justice Association & Justice Action Mental Health Act Review Submission. Indigenous Social Justice Association & Justice Action Mental Health Act Privacy/Carers Submission. Review of the Mental Health Act 1990 - discussion paper Indigenous Social Justice Association & Justice Action Mental Health Act Review Submission

More: http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/archive05/2005a5.html

Mental Health Tribunal recommendations on forensic inmates

NSW: The excuse provided for not providing the exact numbers shows breath-taking arrogance.

ACE would appreciate your input on this matter.

HEALTH-IMPLEMENTING MENTAL HEALTH TRIBUNAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Dr Chesterfield-Evans: asked the Special Minister of State, Minister for Commerce, Minister for Industrial Relations,

More: http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/archive1/MHTRF.pdf

Mental Treatment and Pharmacy Profit $$$$$

1) Mentally ill kept in solitary despite warnings
2) Pharmacy profits hit a nerve

Mentally ill patients are being kept in solitary confinement within maximum security NSW prisons as punishment, against the most basic principles of human rights law.

More: http://www.geocities.com/publik15/archive05/2005b32.html