The Criminalization Of Mental Illness (VIDEO)

In a new report, Al Jazeera English takes a look at just why people with mental health problems make up half the population of U.S. jails and prisons.

Here's the gist of it: After asylums were shuttered during a de-institutionalization movement that took off in the 1960s, the mentally ill largely have had nowhere else to go except the street, and from there many inevitably wind up in the criminal justice system.

Al Jazeera English traveled the country and followed specially-trained police, talked to mentally ill inmates, and advocates for reform to put together a powerful mini-documentary.

"These are the dark ages for people who are severely mentally ill," said E. Fuller Torrey, executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute.

WATCH:

Comments

[garbs]

Mental Institutions will be more humane now that there are more alternatives to help with the stabilizing drugs that are available. We do not live in the dark ages anymore. It is time to get the mentally ill off the streets, help the fellow man out of the prisons and fund these "homes" for those who cannot take care of themselves. It is time for corporations to begin to "take care of their own". Loyalty has gone, caring has gone. Stop funding trivialities and begin to think in a humane manner.

[LeLoup]

BTW, this is a well known problem within the psychiatric community. But you won't see many psychiatrists publicly protesting this shameful situation.

On par with other vulnerable people, the severely mentally ill get short changed by our increasingly intolerant and fearful society.

Just take a look at the unbelievable media and political farce the ACORN "affair" has been, and it is becoming obvious that the right wing propaganda machine is poisoning the very soul of the American social fabric.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/17/acorn_hysteria/index.html

Soon, the mere fact of being poor will be a crime.

[ArtMaggot]

Why is it that AJE is doing better work?

[LeLoup]

Because they're not own by US corporate interests with big stakes in government contracts, ie. GE.