Summary Of The Film 'The Released'

Great Essays
The Frontline video documentary, “The Released,” is a follow-up film of Frontline’s “The New Asylum” which is a documentary about how correctional facilities became a dumping ground for our society’s mentally ill criminals after state psychiatric hospitals closed down in the 1970’s. The movie, “The Released” however, focuses on what happens to people with chronic mental health issues after being released from prisons and jails. The film shows us that most of these mentally ill inmates end up repeating the same cycles that ultimately result in a life-time of recidivism. The conclusion of “The Released” clearly conveys that deinstitutionalization and our mental health system currently in place is a failure. In order to find solutions to this critical problem, it is important to understand the underlining issues surrounding the mental health system breakdown. Another essential element to solving this problem is to change the negative stigma society has towards mental illness by understanding it and its connection to crime and recidivism. This review aims to do just that in addition to discussing alternate approaches that may initiate positive changes in our mental health system and all that are affected by it. To begin, it might be helpful to gain a little insight about the effects …show more content…
They have a hard time finding employment and finding the support they need in order to stay on a path to personal success. Many times these hardships lead them to behaviors and actions that inevitably send them back to jail or prison. This is especially true for those prisoners who suffer from severe mental illness. With over one million mentally ill inmates throughout America, it is said that most of them will return to jail or prison within 18 months from release do to transition

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Abolish Slavery Summary

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Even if a person is mentally stable, any time served in prison will increase his or her vulnerability to the development of mental illness. Also, policies and practices have turned our prisons into revolving-door treatment (or in many cases, non-treatment) facilities, and those that provide therapeutic remain short-terms, under-resourced and ineffective. To me, this signifies that social workers have critical roles to play in all aspects of correctional policy and operations, from entry to release, from creating smart and safe alternatives to monitoring prison practice and advocating and implementing preventive methods. Social work’s involvement should remain as complex as the criminal system, but never as closed and…

    • 850 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Taking an introspective look into the criminal mind, justice system, and the treatment of those entangled in its web is a daunting task, but in the three articles “A Death in the Box” by Mary Pfeiffer, “Supremacy Crimes” by Gloria Steinem, and “Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex” by Angela Davis, the reality is exposed and reveals a flawed system designed and utilized by the wealthy upper class to punish and theoretically enslave the mentally ill and minority groups. In particular, “Supremacy Crimes” details the generalization and vagueness with which the media chooses to present events of mass killings and other tragic situations and paints a picture towards the true culprit committing these crimes effectively opening…

    • 1267 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mental Health And Prison

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages

    ed mental health spending in 2015, compared to 36 in 2013 and 29 in 2014 (Sun, 2015). As stated previously, all of the funding that is being slashed from state mental health budgets is being spent on state prisons and the incarceration system. While mental institutions and prisons have similarities on paper, they are also fundamentally different in the goal they are trying to accomplish. Prisons should be for the rehabilitation of those who break the law, and it should serve as a way to help transition the convicts within back into society without future problems.…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Based on the video “The Released and The New Asylums” we watched in class mentally ill people are treated unfair and unjustly within the society, mental health system, and criminal justice system. They are groups of people who are classified as undesirable or someone who’s deviant. I do not understand why we decide to imprison the mentally ill people and wasting money in prisons instead of building an actual facility where they can be treated better. Where mentally ill will have help from people and take the medicine daily. But instead, the criminal justice system is just sending them out in the streets with two weeks’ worth of medicines and to follow up with a physician.…

    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Our prisons are expanding each year rather than the mental health hospital that would treat mentally ill people. Lack of proper care and treatment, lack of social support pushes mentally ill into the prison system. Other than the shortage of psychiatric beds, mentally ill individuals enter the criminal justice system due to lack of interaction between them and law enforcement persons. When mentally ill is not manageable we place them into the prison. Moreover, the jails are to protect the society.…

    • 1919 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Running head: Mental Illness and Crime Mental Illness And Correspondence To Crime Daniel Costeira Criminolgy CRM 360 Dr. Jaeckle Flagler College Abstract Individuals with mental illness affect the United States criminal justice system, as at least one quarter of the general population, including those in prisons, jails, or on probations is mentally diseased. Most inmates have reported symptoms or a history of a mental health disorder. There are concerns regarding the growing population of the mentally afflicted and the significant need for treatment within in system. The well being of mentally ill individuals who are involved within institutions is being questioned along with the quality of safety that is provided within facilities.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Prison Within the Mind Just within the years 2003 and 2015, the incarceration rates for the mentally ill have tremendously increased, that within a survey done on inmates it was found that “more than three times more seriously mentally ill persons in jails and prisons than in hospitals”,(Carroll). The percentage rate has enormously increased, yet the mental health treatments in prison have not changed in the last two decades, (Carroll). There is a need for change in such situations, as a result, that out of all the inmates with mental illnesses, 83% were denied access to proper treatment, (Jailing People With Mental Illnesses). With millions of people being incarcerated each year and as society becomes more exposed to mental illnesses, there…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The United States has perpetuated a culture of silence and denial surrounding mental illness. In the 1960s and early 70s, the U.S. began the process of “deinstitutionalization,” and, according to journalist Joe Nocera, this process has become a national disgrace (2012). Deinstitutionalization refers to the policy of closing public hospitals and moving the mentally ill to private community-based mental health service providers (Torrey 1997). However, community-based mental health service providers are few and far between, and the development of deinstitutionalization has had severe impacts on the criminal justice system. Through the movement of deinstitutionalization, jails and prisons have been forced to accommodate those with mental illness.…

    • 1290 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Solitary Confinement

    • 1281 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Examining the Scientific Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prisoners’ Mental and Physical Health and its Long Term Effects after Release Introduction It would be an understatement to say that there are no problems in the American criminal justice system. A plethora of these problems stem from the way suspects and convicted criminals are treated in jails. Many guards lack appropriate training to handle inmates who have been diagnosed with mental illnesses; therefore, a myriad of the incarcerated are put into solitary confinement, resulting in irreversible mental and physical trauma. Solitary confinement increases and intensifies both the prevalence of mental and physical illness in prisoners as well as the recidivism rates of prisoners subject…

    • 1281 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Mental Illness In Prisons

    • 1801 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Mental illness in prisoners is an essential focus for reforming prisoners so that they can go into society. When prisoners are left to deal with their…

    • 1801 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    America's Prison System

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Jails and prisons have become the mental asylums of the 21st Century” (qtd. in Daniel). The American prison system should be used strictly for criminals, not for those seen as the “criminally insane.” By researching America’s prison system in today’s world, how this has affected mentally ill inmates, and learning about reform movements, America has a chance to treat these people as prisoners of their own minds instead of placing them behind literal bars. The deinstitutionalization of the state mental health system has caused a dangerous overpopulation in America’s prison system.…

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On average, twenty percent of inmates in jails and fifteen percent of inmates in prisons have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness (Z. K. Torrey). In comparison, there are ten times less mentally ill individuals residing in psychiatric institutions than there are in prisons. The fact that the correctional system has become the primary treatment for the mentally ill should be deeply concerning to not only those affected by mental illness, but all of…

    • 1063 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    For years, people diagnosed with mental disorders or psychiatric illnesses are being sent to the United states prisons. America needs to ask itself, why are so many people with mental illnesses hammering through the nations criminal justice system? Is the rising population of mentally ill prisoners in correction facilities not considered a critical issue that needs to be addressed quickly? The government claims to be concerned with the publics security and well-being, so why are they not supporting their citizens’ rights, especially for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Furthermore, why aren’t they implementing the eighth amendment behind prison walls?…

    • 2016 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Nowadays, close to 50% of the prison population have mental health problems, and it has become one of the serious social problems in the U.S. After the federal program of deinstitutionalizing psychiatric facilities began in1960’s, the government closed down most of the mental health hospitals. Ever since then, the number of prisoners keeps increasing every year. Mentally ill prisoners usually carry many problems in prison. For example, it is hard for them to follow the prison rules; therefore, they are more likely to be charged of facility rule violation. Many of mentally ill offenders and prisoners have been struggling with their mental health problems, but the U.S justice system seems not being very supportive about them.…

    • 1640 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The amount of individual that go through the criminal justice system that have a mental illness has become a growing issue in the criminal justice system. Many individual that enter the criminal justice system are bound to end up in prison, where they have little access to mental health help. The amount of individual that enter the criminal justice system that have a serious mental illness is estimated to be 16.9 percent. These individuals are usually repeat offenders that circulate through the system because they do not receive the treatment that they need. (Almquist & Dodd, 2009).…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays