Author Talks About Criminalizing the Mentally Ill
Pete Earley thought he knew a thing or two about mental health and criminal justice after working for a couple of decades as a journalist. But when his mentally ill son was arrested for breaking and entering, Earley discovered he still had much to learn.
After struggling to find treatment for his son's bipolar disorder, Earley immersed himself in the criminal justice system to try to find out how and why jails have become top housing institutions for the mentally ill. His book — Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness — grew out of that investigation ...
Comments (4)
mathew parker
My heart breaks to think of a bipolar or schizophrenic being trapped in a jail. I'd liken it to beating a dog...it doesn't matter how much you do it, they only understand your cruelty and nothing else. On a related note, why are there decaying, abandoned mental health asylums all over the US? I think the way this country treats mental health, and really all health, is sick. Book me on the first flight out of here.
robin flawedplan
Thanks for that, I just threw up in my mouth. This is the discourse that needs to land in the same place we put the negro problem, the woman problem and any other problematized social identity. For that to happen people w/ psych disabilities need to refuse to let others speak for, explain or apologize for us. The reason it doesn't happen has to do with another kind of stigma and commensurate horror of knowing how you ended up where you are. That's not about biology, it's about experience.
What's missing here are two words: Nature and Nurture. This is a question and it has not been settled.
Truth Hurts
It's similar with an abusive mentally ill spouse. The individual and the family are often in desperate need of medical and mental health support systems -- but Texas public institutions are only concerned with identifying who to arrest.
Between the family law system and the penal system, mental health problems in families are invariably left unidentified and, if identified, left unaddressed.
susie52
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Psychotropic Drug Use in Foster Care System Under Investigation
http://legallykidnapped.blogspot.com/search?q=Texas&updated-max=2010-06-24T06%3A31%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=20
The US Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management has asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the prevalence of prescribed psychotropic medications for children in foster care. The estimated cost of prescribed medications, often used in the treatment of emotional and behavioural problems, may run to hundreds of millions of dollars each year in the United States alone. To date, only limited reports are available to determine the actual prevalence of psychotropic medication in foster children. Experts suggest that foster children are four times more likely to be prescribed antipsychotic or antidepressant medication than other children covered under Medicaid. One 2003 study of foster children in Florida indicated that 55 percent of children in the foster care system are being administered psychotropic medication although forty percent of those medicated had no history of a psychiatric evaluation.. Another study has indicated that anti-psychotic medication used has increased 528 from 2000 to 2005. A Texas study from 2004 showed that 34.7 percent of foster children were prescribed at least one psychotropic drug with some children taking five or more.
Posted by LK at 7:49 AM
http://legallykidnapped.blogspot.com/search?q=Texas&updated-max=2010-06-24T06%3A31%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=20