Specialized Healthcare Services: Mental Illness And The Justice System (Essay Sample)

Mental Illness and the Justice System Name Institutional Affiliation Mental Illness and the Justice System The correctional arm of the criminal justice system has to ensure that people serving time receive standards of health care that are accorded to the rest of the society. A good proportionate of the prisoners suffer from a myriad of mental illnesses thereby calling for specialized healthcare services. This need for such services has worsened the costs that the National Health Services department has to incur to offer specialized treatment in prisons. The large number of prisoners needing mental illness treatment is high making it impossible for the criminal justice system to guarantee that these persons will receive quality and effective treatments. There is also an issue with movements of the prison population through inter-prison transfers thus the patients affected by this movement have their treatment disrupted. Correctional facilities also lack a way of connecting the mentally ill prisoners who are coming out of the system with care programmes that will ensure that they continue to receive help even after they are free. This has seen a high probability for ex-convicts to commit suicide compared to people in the general community remain higher. Consequently, correctional facilities continue to receive criticism for not making a positive impact on people despite the financial costs it attracts from the tax-payer. The media and the general public believe that there is a strong connection between crimes and mental illness. This belief is based on the notion that mentally ill persons may be irrational thinkers and actors which predisposes them to the possibility of committing a crime. Possibility of committing a crime for a mentally ill person is high due to their genes as well as patterns of cognitive abilities. The media and...