The incarceration of mentally ill individuals has been increasing steadily, and unfortunately most of these individuals are of both minority and low income backgrounds. Due to the instability of the mental health care system, these vulnerable communities are being incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. In addition to a rise in arrests, people with mental illnesses are also facing a lack of proper psychiatric treatment while incarcerated. Overall, mentally ill individuals, despite their medical histories, are being openly neglected and forgotten, left to move through the system without justice. Thus, leaving family and friends gripping to a ghost of a loved one. These injustices of setting aside a community that is treated like second-class citizens is depicted through statistics within Leah Pope’s 2019 "Racial Disparities in Mental Health and Criminal Justice" published in the National Alliance on Mental Illness [NAMI] blog, followed by the illustration of the overall mistreatment of the mentally ill in Paul Tullis 2019 "When Mental Illness Becomes A Jail Sentence" in The Atlantic. These two writings consist of statistical findings that show injustice against low-income communities of color and the systemic problem of overlooking those who are most in need.
Prisons and jails have been long overdue for the acknowledgement of being overpopulated and highly condensed with inmates. Yet, prison populations continue to steadily increase with more being detained for crimes that may be influenced by their mental state. These people have been silenced by the system and as a result are lacking representation, forcing them to live a continuous cycle of incarceration and misrepresentation. Derek Clay, a man from Colorado who suffers from diagnosed psychosis and possible bipolar disorder, is an example of the saturated prison system. Clay, who was detained for the crime of stealing a customer's
hamburger at a restaurant, was influenced by his psychosis and then promptly arrested and charged for the felony of stealing. However, being charged with this theft is not where his issues with the system begins and ends. Clay faced being neglected by the justice system. Paul Tullis states, “A 1960 U.S Supreme Court ruling Dusky v. U.S requires jurisdictions that have arrested people who show signs of mental illness to determine whether the accused understand the charges against them.” This court decision was put into place to protect those who do not have the means to understand the gravity of their situation. In accordance with this law, when Clay was evaluated he was deemed incompetent. This left the government with the duty to ensure that proper measures were to be taken to protect vulnerable Clay’s rights due to his mental condition. Clays’ care was placed under the government because of mental state evaluation due to concerning social media posts that he had created. Therefore, the decision made by the appointed case judge believed Clay to be a danger to both himself and the public. After this decision was decided the judge then ordered the state to provide Clay with competency-restoration services. These services are put into place in order to allow the defendant to participate within their own trial. However, between the time of his social postings and his mental evaluation Clay did not receive any of the help that he was meant to be receiving. Altogether, the lack of support and restoration that were promised, instead, were given to Clay in the form of restoration treatment at a state psychiatric hospital after his trial and time period for the original restoration had ended. During this time period Clay attended his trial despite not having had the mental aid appointed and instead was going to be continue to be held under state care despite the state might not having adequate housing such as lack of beds and treatment centers. This lack of acknowledgement to his disposition forced him to confront the state. This verdict forced Clay out of the hands of a law that was enacted to protect individuals such as himself that hold no power when it comes to their mental state. When states ignore their own laws and regulations it results in further neglect of the well being of those who need representation the most.
The issue of being overlooked and disregarded is a major problem faced by Americans of minority groups, namely, Black Americans. People of color are incarcerated at a higher rate than
white Americans. Leah Pope finds, “Our Incarceration Trends tool shows even greater racial disparities, with black people being 3.5 times more likely to be incarcerated in jail.” If a population of people have a higher chance of being incarcerated compared to those that surround them, the evident injustice is setting them up for failure. If the system is unable to support those already detained, the addition of more detainees will not be supported. The diagnosis of mental illness in people of color is less likely to occur than that of other inmates, and minorities are also less likely to even receive mental health aid this is supported by Pope; “Black people being 3.5 times more likely to be incarcerated in jail and nearly five times more likely to be incarcerated in prison nationwide.” Furthermore, recent data from the Bureau of Justice statistics depicts that about half of inmates within a jail system are diagnosed with mental illness and more than a quarter of people in jail were in distress for serious psychological distress (Pope 2019). The system put into place to help reform inmates is proven to not be working. According to Pope,exams and screenings conducted for these individuals are less likely to properly occur,“mental health screening tools used by jails reproduce racial disparities, resulting in fewer black and Latinx people screening positive.”. The simple fact that these people are people of color means that they will not be tested or receive the help they need. These articles by Tullis and Pope depict the injustice that many low-income Americans of color with mental illness are experiencing: they are being treated as second-class citizens The stigma that surrounds these individuals forces laws to be enacted for their protection, yet despite these efforts these laws are overruled.The treatment of both inmates and those awaiting conviction is one that consists solely of neglect. This neglect is not only experienced throughout society but most importantly within the jail and prison system. Mentally ill patients who are forced to stand trial when they are incapable of doing risks harm to their sentencing because decisions made under psychosis or other factors impact an individual's comprehension and severity of the situation. Therefore, standing against a judge when they cannot comprehend, without protection from the state, is only furthering the vulnerability of a patient. In addition, mentally ill people of color face injustices due to racial and disability bias within the criminal justice system. This is unfair because it has
been proven that they are not more likely to commit crimes than their white counterparts. Isolating a community is what leads them to become more likely to be detained The over imprisonment of colored communities and individuals with a mental illness has created the isolation of communities as bias and profiling has increased within the criminal justice system. Causing for progress to become hindered and for toxic cycles and generational curses to continue to progress. As communities are not informed and not represented properly and sufficiently numbers of individuals forced to face imprisonment or have prison stay as their main form of mental healthcare as a society we will continue to see negative trends increase. Such as the ones described by Pope and Tullis. Overall, the lack of regulation within the system is what creates the malpractice and treatment within the judicial system.
