Major Issues of Incarceration - Essay Example

Decarceration Decarceration Decarceration describes a policy of closing down asylums, reformatories, and prisons. Instead of housing the mentally and criminals in ill institutions, many of them receive a treat in a community setting. According to Dr. Scull, there is a massive ignorance community about treatment and closer examination of prisoners and the mentally ill. In Dr.Scull’s book he claims that community based treatment of prisoners can be much more effective than institutional treatment and this means that the community is bound to help these victims recover quicker than in institutions. When prisoners are taken to institutions, they are given attention and taught how to live with the society around them thus when brought to live closer to the society they are bound to recover faster. Scull closely examines conventional explanations for the move towards decarceration such as the introduction of psychoactive drugs and growing disenchantment with the dehumanization nature of total institutions and finds these explanations to be unsatisfactory. The ideology of bringing prisoners closer to the society requires many discussions because in the modern society, people are busy and this means that they do not have time to take care of the mentally ill and prisoners who need their attention to recover. By the end of the nineteenth century, asylum doctors served as curators and gatekeepers and this meant that they were the agents of the capitalist states of these institutions. Scull posited that psychiatry’s twentieth-century development of Freudian ideas helped in broadening the definition of mental illness and its professional power. He asserts that beyond the asylum psychiatry there is authority over a wide range of medicalised deviant activity in what had become a therapeutic state. The demise of the asylum system from the mid twentieth century had little to do with either the advent of psychoactive drugs or popular concerns about the therapeutic value and baneful affects of institutional care. Decarceration mainly focuses on how mental patients can be brought into the society for care since there they can be assured of a meager existence by way of benefit payments and the general post-war welfare state infrastructure. Community can give care to the mentally ill although their care is considered as ‘community neglect’ by Scull. For the process of Decarceration to be effective, the society ought to ensure that it creates a favorable environment for prisoners and victims of mental illness so that they can recover quicker. In most cases, prisoners and victims of mental illness are not taught to appreciate one another and most times they display some sense of hate but in contrary to this, they end up creating friendship between themselves and help each other in times of need. Some of the things to consider in improving the environmental features of a prison or institutions for mentally ill victims are such as design the institution and everything associated to it such as the lighting systems, toilets, ventilations, waterholes among other things. In order to maintain good conduct within modern prisons, it is important to have a development plan that entails solving all the environmental features that affect the prisoners. The general plan should be focused on the construction of the prisons. The toilets should be well built for sanitation purposes, the waterholes within the prison should be covered and the lighting systems should be regulated. The institution should have modern design and this means that it should have a chapel and schoolrooms in it since this will help in the training sessions of the prisoners. The development plan will help the stakeholders know how to control the prisons and develop its environment further. The plan will also ensure that the prisons constructions last longer and the prisoners live in a conducive environment. After all these have been done, then the relationship between the prison staff and other prisoners should also be controlled through the training and awareness programs in order to maintain order within the institutions. The first thing that can be described as an environmental feature is the role that the prison environment has on prisoner coping. This is mainly concerned with the deprivations of prison life and the behavior of prisoners within the institution. Some of these features are such as the rate of violence within the prisons, the increased rate of suicide, the daily routines, prison management style, prisoner staff relation with inmates and the general behavior of prisoners within the same prison. Another environmental feature that can affect the lives of prisoners within the institution is the prison culture, which is viewed as naturally violent no matter what. When a prisoner gets into the prison for the first time, everyone welcomes him or her harshly by intimidating him and this makes the behaviors of the same prisoners even worse. The ten environmental features affecting prisoners and mentally ill victims are such as: 1. Institution’s management style 2. Victims daily routine 3. The institution’s culture 4. Training 5. Suicide 6. Violence 7. Administrative & engineering controls 8. Communication programs 9. Institution Design 10. Institution rules The most common strategy to reduce prison violence is using classification instruments to assess inmate risk (for violence, escape, disruptions) and place prisoners in appropriate security environments. The instruments used to assess risk vary across jurisdictions, but most include measures such as the nature of the offense, the conduct during previous confinements, substance abuse and mental health histories, gang affiliation, and other variables thought to be associated with prisoners misconduct. Effective management style will help the prisoners know how to behave within the institutions. Their daily routine will help to keep them busy thus, reducing the rate of crime, instilling positive behavior in them will help them know how to preserve the environment, and the prison culture will help in the sustainability of the environment at large. Other environmental features such as design or prison architecture can help in reducing the number of prison break incidents, the communication programs will help them know how to pass message across effectively without violence, the training will help them become better people in the society, and this will make the prison environment conducive. Administrative & engineering controls will help improve the relation between the prisoners and the prison staff and the relation between the prisoners themselves. The concept of decarceration requires embracing the concept of long-term care to victims that it intends to bring closer to the society. In the modern world where change is the rule in almost all initiations, the sector of long-term care is changing drastically than other sectors. There are seemingly constant changes in regulations, and methodologies of reimbursement. Long-term care consists of variety services that helps in meeting both medical and non-medical needs of patients with disability or chronic illness, and cannot take care of themselves for long. These sectors mainly focuses on taking care of patients left in hospitals, and are unable to survive long with their chronic conditions. In most cases, long-term care offers services to the victims of mental illness since in most hospitals around the world they are the majority who stays longer in hospitals. The most common forms of long-term care are formal, and informal. Patients acquire these services either in hospitals or in their houses. With much changes taking place in long-term care services, administrators face tougher challenges that requires them to bring fresh skills to their jobs. The process of decarceration also requires introducing counseling psychologists to both prisoners and mentally ill victims. Counseling psychologists is an ideology that is practical, and qualified to meet the psychological needs of an elderly in the society. Counseling psychologists, who traditionally focus on developmental, strength-based approaches, are one population of mental health service providers that are poised to address the needs of the aging population (Sanders 81). In the contemporary world, specialties of the psychology profession have extended to different countries globally, and this improves methods of modern counseling. In countries like the United States, this specialty began during the Second World War since this is when the country was in need of training, and vocational placement. In the modern world, old people are neglected because they cannot take good care of themselves, and the society sees this as a burden that requires much attention in a busy environment. Taking care of prisoners and mentally ill in the society is one of the ways of understanding the importance of culture, and values awareness that aims at increasing the number of multicultural competent counseling psychologists, potentially equipping them to address the diversity of old age. One of the factors to consider when looking at the importance of studying mental health professionals treating older adults is the attitudes and behaviors of these health professionals globally. References Jones, D. W., & London School of Economics and Political Science. (2012). Conditions for sustainable decarceration strategies for young offenders. London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London. Fisher, M., & University of East Anglia. (2003). Getting out of the asylum: Discharge and decarceration issues in asylum history, c.1890-1959. Norwich: University of East Anglia. Hill, A., & University of Derby. (2004). From incarceration to decarceration: Care in the community in two hostels for the homeless. Derby: University of Derby. Armstrong, S. (September 01, 2002). The emergence and implications of a mental health ethos in juvenile justice. Sociology of Health & Illness, 24, 5, 599-620. Yates, J. (January 01, 2012). What Prospects Youth Justice? Children in Trouble in the Age of Austerity. 77-92. Deverteuil, G., & Evans, J. (January 01, 2009). Landscapes of Despair. 278-300. Henckes, N. (January 01, 2011). Reforming psychiatric institutions in the mid-twentieth century: a framework for analysis. History of Psychiatry, 22, 2, 164-181. Read More