Reaction/Response Essay
Gary Fields and Erica Phillips article titles Treatment Behind Bars – The New Asylum: Jails Swell with Mentally Ill is an equally eye opening and important piece on a decades old problem that is still relevant to today. The article highlights the dire extent of mentally ill individuals being held and treated within America’s jails. As many mental health facilities and psychiatric hospitals shut down, there are very few other alternatives. As a result, many mentally ill individuals end up on the streets where they commit “nuisance” crimes repeatedly and therefore end of in jail rather than treatment. The article dives into the effect of minimal resources for the mentally ill and how that has increased the population of mentally ill inmates.
Many of these inmates commit what are considered “nuisance crimes” or petty offenses such as theft, trespassing, or disorderly conduct, likely due to their untreated mental illnesses impair judgment and make daily survival difficult. The story of Steven Dorsey, who stole food and a toothbrush while homeless and mentally ill, demonstrates this cycle. These crimes are not acts of malice or greed but symptoms of deeper psychological distress and desperation. Once incarcerated, these individuals receive only short-term care and are released back into society without adequate support or medication. Lacking continued treatment, they often relapse, reoffend, and are sent back to jail, creating a revolving door that traps them in the criminal justice system rather than guiding them toward recovery.
Facilities such as Cook County, Los Angeles County Jail and even Rikers Island hold thousands of mentally ill inmates, essentially functioning as a “de facto mental hospital”. In Cook County Jail, a social worker Elli Montgomery and her team encounter inmates suffering from a variety of mental illnesses on a daily basis. One introduced in the article, names Robert Miller, was 19 years old and was arrested for minor offenses with a history of mental illness. Robert needed mental health treatment rather than punishment for petty crimes.
Sheriff Thomas Dart of Cook County is also mentioned in the article as well as others who note that society has changed its outlook on the mentally ill over many decades. For example, society used to condemn the idea of confining the mentally ill to psychiatric hospitals as they were seen as a cruel punishment but now tolerates their confinement to jails and prisons. Conditions in Los Angelos and New York City are similar, where the number of mentally ill patients continues to rise as they are punished for petty crimes rather than given the treatment they need.
The article also highlights the drastic cost of mentally ill inmates. Caring for them is not only expensive but difficult. Jails and prisons were not initially made to hold the vast amount of mentally ill individuals as they do now. Many of these correctional facilities lack the adequate psychiatric staff and space. Some states, like Oregon and Washington have attempted to combat this issue by training correctional officers in mental health disrobers and creating units within the prisons to resemble and act as psychiatric hospitals. Despite this, the broader issue remains unsolved.
Ultimately, Fields and Phillips’ article argues that America has criminalized mental illness. The closures of psychiatric hospitals and failures of the country’s mental health system have pushed the responsibility of care to the mentally ill onto correctional facilities that are not equipped to handle it. Now, instead of receiving treatment in a clinical setting, mentally ill individuals are being punished and confided for committing minor crimes. This piece also devastating to read, is important as it calls attention to the need for better funding for mental health and more community treatment options to put an end to this revolving door between the streets, hospitals and correctional facilities.
This article to me was extremely real and eye opening. I already know much about the topic of mentally ill individuals and how they end up behind bars instead of in treatment. However, this article put it into greater perspective with its data and real like instances. To understand my perspective, it’s important to note the work I do. I work as a hospital security officer in a rather heavily populated city with a great number of mentally ill individuals and homeless individuals alike. The real like instances used in the article was extremely devastating. It puts into words with one person struggling while also giving data to understand the drastic nature of the issue.
As a security officer, I work hand in hand with local law enforcement on a daily basis for many of tasks. More often than not, I am working with mentally ill patients and homeless patients struggling with mental illness or addictions, and often they are accompanied by law enforcement officers. I have gotten to know plenty of our “regulars” and seen them go in and out of jails when what they really needed was mental health treatment. I have seen the system fail time and time again to help these individuals however they continue to end up in the revolving door.
Articles like these need to be read and need to be understood. I personally feel devastated reading an article like this while also seeing the problems firsthand. I have seen first-hand, good people who have genuine hearts end up behind bars for simply trying to get by. Whether its committing “nuisance” crimes to stay alive or doing drugs to silence the noises in their heads. These people need real help, not just medication and especially not to be thrown in a cell. I think an article like this is extremely important and should be read by everyone. This is an issue that is greater than you may think and effect thousands of mentally ill individuals. The mental health system in America has been beaten and battered and instead of helping people we are just “treating them” with medications and putting them aside.
References
Fields, G., & Phillips, E. E. (2013). Treatment Behind Bars — The New Asylums: Jails Swell With Mentally Ill. The Wall Street Journal.