The Media Proves It

By DaBreonna Doss

When doing scholarly research, scholars have this term called “coding”. Coding refers to the ways in which language is used, but underneath this language coded images pop up in our heads about what something is or looks like. For example, when you think of the words like American, nail technician, ghetto, etc you already have a preconceived notion of what these terms mean. Now, what if we take this coded language and apply it to the word “prisoner”, or more specifically “mentally ill prisoner”?

Scholars Schilders and Ogloff (2014) in “Review a point-of-reception mental health screening outcomes in an Australian Prison” states that 32-42 percent of the prisoners in the criminal justice system are mentally ill. This is close to half the prison population, and we must look into how these prisoners’ lives play out within the system.

The question I would like to explore is, within the criminal justice system, are government agencies providing the needed care that mentally ill prisoners require and are their current approaches effective? We will be using Schilders and Ogloff text, as well as the Netflix series Lockdown which dives deep into a prisoner’s life and experience. One commonality between the two is the implications set in place to assess prisoners on their entry to a new prison or reception as scholars refer. “... some prison officials merely asking prisoners on reception a few questions about their mental health history, with other prisons utilising more comprehensive screening...” (Schilders and Ogloff, 2014, p.481). In Lockdown, they talk about the fact that many procedures as far as mentally examining new entries, get prolonged because there are so many entries within a day. Another commonality is the ways in which they handle mentally ill prisoners. In season 3, episode 6, Lockdown talks about a woman with mental bipolar disorder. In response to her disorder, she only moves cells if necessary and sometimes placed in confinement for close watch. Schilder and Ogloff (2014) point out, “Eighty-five (23%) of the severe/acute group, 78 (19%) of the suspected/stable group and 530 (62%) of those with a history of mental illness were not recorded as being referred for an additional assessment...” (p.486). To define some terminology, “severe/acute” groups refer to mentally ill prisoners that are on close rotational watch for suicide and self-harm. “Suspected/stable” groups refer to those that have knowledgeable mental health issues but is not as bad, and then there are those who simply have a history of it. There are limited resources and no room for prisoners the require mental illness assistance. “Unsurprisingly, mentally ill prisoners required substantially more services than their non-mentally ill counterparts, which suggested that standard services offered by prisons may be less suitable for mentally ill prisoners” (Schilder and Ogloff, 2014, p.488).

I suggest that rather than using government finances to set in place disciplinary confinement cells, use it to create spaces that assist mental ill prisoners and problems will begin to find solutions. Schilder and Ogloff (2014) agrees with this solution and summarizes that by giving the expenses: prisoners have less chance of relapse, they can adjust into the prison society and outside the society, have necessary and constant treatment, room will come available, and prison staff will have assistance in situations outside of their training and a much safer environment (p.490-491). All-in-all, everyone wins!




Word Count: 559

Keywords: Mental health, prisoner, lockdown, Schilder and Ogloff, room




References


Myers, W. D., & Jackson, J. D. (2010). Lockdown. Recorded Books.


Schilders, M. R., & Ogloff, J. R. (2014). Review of point-of-reception mental health

          screening outcomes in an Australian prison. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry &


          Psychology, 25(4), 480-494.