Post by Mel on May 22, 2006 13:07:35 GMT -5
New Book: Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness
Read more... Government & Schizophrenia · Schizophrenia Advocacy · Schizophrenia Books, TV, Movies & Plays · Schizophrenia Personal Story · Schizophrenia, Poverty & Crime
There is a new book written by a parent who has stuggled with the mental healthcare system (and as is too commonly the case, also the criminal justice system) in the US.
The book is titled: Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness. its written by Pete Earley. Highly Recommended reading for any advocate of the mentally ill.
A brief description of the book is as follows:
Pete Earley had no idea. He'd been a journalist for over thirty years, and the author of several award-winning nonfiction books about crime and punishment and society. Yet he'd always been on the outside looking in. He had no idea what it was like to be on the inside looking out until his son, Mike, was declared mentally ill, and Earley was thrown headlong into the maze of contradictions, disparities, and catch-22s that is America's mental health system.
The more Earley researched, the more he uncovered the bigger picture: Our nation's prisons have become our new mental hospitals. Crazy tells two stories. The first is his son's. The second describes what Earley learned during a yearlong investigation inside the Miami-Dade County jail, where he was given complete, unrestricted access. There, and in the surrounding community, he shadowed inmates and patients; interviewed correctional officers, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, mental-health professionals, and the police; talked with parents, siblings, and spouses; consulted historians, civil rights lawyers, and legislators.
The result is both a remarkable piece of investigative journalism, and a wake-up call-a portrait that could serve as a snapshot of any community in America
Following is a short excerpt of the book:
"A mental-health revolution has occurred in the United States. In 1955, some 560,000 Americans were patients in state mental hospitals. If you took the patient-per-capita ratio in 1955 and extrapolated it out to today, you'd expect to find 930,000 patients in mental hospitals. But there are fewer than 55,000. Where are the others?
More than 300,000 are in jails and prisons. Another half million are on court-ordered probation. The largest public facilities for the mentally ill are jails and prisons. They have become our new asylums.
To find out why, I went to Miami. I chose that city for two reasons. I didn't want to risk irritating local officials in Fairfax by writing about the jail system here, as they would be in charge of deciding Mike's fate. Also, I had been told that Miami has a higher percentage of mentally ill residents than any other big US city. Three percent of the population in most American cities is mentally ill; in Miami, the figure is 9 percent.
In addition to the usual 3 percent, 3 percent come to Miami for the warm weather, and another 3 percent arrived thanks to Fidel Castro. In 1980, Castro released patients from Cuba's mental hospitals into the stream of refugees fleeing to Florida from the port of Mariel.
Miami has been struggling to deal with its mentally ill. Its jail system is the nation's fourth largest. Sixteen percent of its inmates have severe mental disorders. The craziest are housed on the downtown jail's ninth floor in the "suicide watch" cells with plexiglass front walls so officers can watch them.
Dr. Joseph Poitier, the psychiatrist at the Miami jail, took me on his morning rounds. As we entered C wing, I gagged. The air smelled of urine, perspiration, excrement, blood, and discarded food. Prisoners hacked, coughed, groaned. Correctional officers yelled commands. Leg chains clanked as prisoners arrived.
A lot of it was typical jail noises. When I listened more closely, I heard asylum sounds: a prisoner sobbing, another moaning, a third screaming.
Thud, thud, thud. Then louder: THUD. THUD. THUD. An inmate was banging his forehead against a plexiglass cell front.
The inmates peering out in the first cells were naked. There was nothing in their cells except a combination sink and toilet. No chair, no place to sleep. The temperature in each cell hovered in the 60s.
Inmates trembled in the chilly air. A few rocked back and forth on their heels. Some had urinated and defecated on the floor. Most stood at their cell fronts looking out. They had blank expressions, hollow eyes.
"What I do here is triage," Dr. Poitier said.
There is no meaningful treatment, he said. As we moved from cell to cell, Poitier tried to persuade prisoners to take their medication. They had arrived on C wing with no medical records. Many were homeless. Most of their families had given up on them. Psychotic inmates could spend months there. Others would be released only to be arrested within hours on charges related to their illnesses, such as trespassing or being a public nuisance.
If they were charged with a felony, they would eventually be sent to one of Florida's three forensic hospitals. But there was a long waiting list, and even then they wouldn't be treated. Instead, they would be given medicine until they were judged "competent" for trial and returned to Miami. Sometimes it could take five or six trips between jail and hospital before they were stable enough to appear in court.
Dr. Poitier and I paused outside a cell designed for two men but holding six. A prisoner was lying on the floor next to a toilet that another was urinating in. Because the splash was hitting the inmate's face, Poitier asked a prisoner to rouse the man to make certain he was not dead. The inmate raised his head and rolled over.
As we were about to move on, I noticed movement under a steel bunk. Dropping to my knee, I peered through the plexiglass wall. A man was curled up - he had schizophrenia, which can cause hallucinations and confused thinking-and was chewing on orange peels. He smiled and waved.
I checked my watch after we finished the rounds. Dr. Poitier had spoken with or observed 92 inmates. His rounds had taken 19½ minutes.
"A lot of people think someone who is mentally ill is going to get help if they are put in jail," Dr. Poitier said. "But the truth is we don't help many people here. We can't."
Read more... Government & Schizophrenia · Schizophrenia Advocacy · Schizophrenia Books, TV, Movies & Plays · Schizophrenia Personal Story · Schizophrenia, Poverty & Crime
There is a new book written by a parent who has stuggled with the mental healthcare system (and as is too commonly the case, also the criminal justice system) in the US.
The book is titled: Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness. its written by Pete Earley. Highly Recommended reading for any advocate of the mentally ill.
A brief description of the book is as follows:
Pete Earley had no idea. He'd been a journalist for over thirty years, and the author of several award-winning nonfiction books about crime and punishment and society. Yet he'd always been on the outside looking in. He had no idea what it was like to be on the inside looking out until his son, Mike, was declared mentally ill, and Earley was thrown headlong into the maze of contradictions, disparities, and catch-22s that is America's mental health system.
The more Earley researched, the more he uncovered the bigger picture: Our nation's prisons have become our new mental hospitals. Crazy tells two stories. The first is his son's. The second describes what Earley learned during a yearlong investigation inside the Miami-Dade County jail, where he was given complete, unrestricted access. There, and in the surrounding community, he shadowed inmates and patients; interviewed correctional officers, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, mental-health professionals, and the police; talked with parents, siblings, and spouses; consulted historians, civil rights lawyers, and legislators.
The result is both a remarkable piece of investigative journalism, and a wake-up call-a portrait that could serve as a snapshot of any community in America
Following is a short excerpt of the book:
"A mental-health revolution has occurred in the United States. In 1955, some 560,000 Americans were patients in state mental hospitals. If you took the patient-per-capita ratio in 1955 and extrapolated it out to today, you'd expect to find 930,000 patients in mental hospitals. But there are fewer than 55,000. Where are the others?
More than 300,000 are in jails and prisons. Another half million are on court-ordered probation. The largest public facilities for the mentally ill are jails and prisons. They have become our new asylums.
To find out why, I went to Miami. I chose that city for two reasons. I didn't want to risk irritating local officials in Fairfax by writing about the jail system here, as they would be in charge of deciding Mike's fate. Also, I had been told that Miami has a higher percentage of mentally ill residents than any other big US city. Three percent of the population in most American cities is mentally ill; in Miami, the figure is 9 percent.
In addition to the usual 3 percent, 3 percent come to Miami for the warm weather, and another 3 percent arrived thanks to Fidel Castro. In 1980, Castro released patients from Cuba's mental hospitals into the stream of refugees fleeing to Florida from the port of Mariel.
Miami has been struggling to deal with its mentally ill. Its jail system is the nation's fourth largest. Sixteen percent of its inmates have severe mental disorders. The craziest are housed on the downtown jail's ninth floor in the "suicide watch" cells with plexiglass front walls so officers can watch them.
Dr. Joseph Poitier, the psychiatrist at the Miami jail, took me on his morning rounds. As we entered C wing, I gagged. The air smelled of urine, perspiration, excrement, blood, and discarded food. Prisoners hacked, coughed, groaned. Correctional officers yelled commands. Leg chains clanked as prisoners arrived.
A lot of it was typical jail noises. When I listened more closely, I heard asylum sounds: a prisoner sobbing, another moaning, a third screaming.
Thud, thud, thud. Then louder: THUD. THUD. THUD. An inmate was banging his forehead against a plexiglass cell front.
The inmates peering out in the first cells were naked. There was nothing in their cells except a combination sink and toilet. No chair, no place to sleep. The temperature in each cell hovered in the 60s.
Inmates trembled in the chilly air. A few rocked back and forth on their heels. Some had urinated and defecated on the floor. Most stood at their cell fronts looking out. They had blank expressions, hollow eyes.
"What I do here is triage," Dr. Poitier said.
There is no meaningful treatment, he said. As we moved from cell to cell, Poitier tried to persuade prisoners to take their medication. They had arrived on C wing with no medical records. Many were homeless. Most of their families had given up on them. Psychotic inmates could spend months there. Others would be released only to be arrested within hours on charges related to their illnesses, such as trespassing or being a public nuisance.
If they were charged with a felony, they would eventually be sent to one of Florida's three forensic hospitals. But there was a long waiting list, and even then they wouldn't be treated. Instead, they would be given medicine until they were judged "competent" for trial and returned to Miami. Sometimes it could take five or six trips between jail and hospital before they were stable enough to appear in court.
Dr. Poitier and I paused outside a cell designed for two men but holding six. A prisoner was lying on the floor next to a toilet that another was urinating in. Because the splash was hitting the inmate's face, Poitier asked a prisoner to rouse the man to make certain he was not dead. The inmate raised his head and rolled over.
As we were about to move on, I noticed movement under a steel bunk. Dropping to my knee, I peered through the plexiglass wall. A man was curled up - he had schizophrenia, which can cause hallucinations and confused thinking-and was chewing on orange peels. He smiled and waved.
I checked my watch after we finished the rounds. Dr. Poitier had spoken with or observed 92 inmates. His rounds had taken 19½ minutes.
"A lot of people think someone who is mentally ill is going to get help if they are put in jail," Dr. Poitier said. "But the truth is we don't help many people here. We can't."