Mental Health and Treatment

Mental Health, Prisons and Hospitals

The two videos -- the news piece on Connecticut's "purple pods" used in Hartford hospital and the Frontline special on prisons and mental health -- both indicate a problem in how society copes with and treats individuals with mental health. They also portray the two extremes of society's response to mental health issues. The Hartford hospital is on the one extreme -- in which the patient's comfort and security are top priorities (to the extent that mental health patients are given their own specially constructed rooms where safety mechanisms and soothing features have been built into the room). The prison system in Ohio described in Frontline is on the other extreme -- where prisons essentially act as mental health hospitals because the mental health facilities in Columbus are no longer able to tend to the needs of mental health patients: the patients end up being arrested for whatever reason and must be looked after by the state. The difference is clear: in the prison, the individuals suffering from mental health problems are behind bars, locked in cuffs or shackled at the ankles; violence to themselves and against them (force used by officers) is commonplace; in the Hartford hospital, on the other hand, safety and comfort are the most important features of the new rooms. The patient's peace of mind is the number one priority.

As Harner and Riley (2013) note, "without appropriate intervention during incarceration, there is the potential for these conditions to worsen during confinement" (p. 26). Their study shows that placing mental health patients in prisons without providing adequate treatment is a lose-lose scenario: the prisons lose because they are having to cope with inmates that they cannot possibly assist and the inmates lose because they are not receiving the type of treatment they need. Gonzalez and Connell (2014) support the finding of Harner and Riley (2013) in their study of mental health in prisons: they show that "a substantial portion of the prison population is not receiving treatment for mental health conditions. This treatment discontinuity has the potential to affect both recidivism and health care costs on release from prison" (p. 2328). What both studies suggest is that mental health patients need to be treated by hospitals -- not by prison guards where prisoners are kept in chains or behind bars. Such a setting is not conducive to bettering one's mental health -- and the Frontline video shows it.

The news report on the Hartford hospital, on the other hand, shows what can be done when money is invested in hospitals. While the rooms described in the news piece may seem overboard for some, the reality is that the hospital is taking steps to provide the type of care to mental health patients that can actually move the patients towards a better mental state -- at least in the immediate term.

What is really needed is a compromise between the two extremes -- a longer duration treatment (rather than imprisonment) that can allow patients to receive the kind of care they need. The Frontline video showed all too well what happens to patients who are locked away instead of treated: they are recycled into a system that has no choice but to lock them away like animals, as it does not have the means or support infrastructure in place to treat them as they should be treated.