The Increase in the Frequency of Involvement of Ex-Mental Patients in Case Study

The Increase in the Frequency of Involvement of Ex-Mental Patients in the Criminal Justice System - Case Study Example The objective of this study is to determine the effect of deinstitutionalization on the frequency of involvement of ex-mental patients in the criminal justice system through an analysis or review of available data and information on private and public mental hospital capacities, and crime rates in purposively selected U.S. inner-cities. In the advent of deinstitutionalization, several former mental patients have turned out to be considerably involved with the criminal justice system, which is an area they are especially unprepared to deal with. Researchers and observers alike, depending on their specific concern in the issue, have thus far predisposed to examine this outcome of the process of deinstitutionalization in one of two ways (LaFond & Durham, 1992). First, the mainstream media have took hold of particular offenses involving the abrupt and dramatic murder of unsuspecting victims by sadistic murderers, whom they readily recognized as ‘escaped lunatics’ or ‘psychos on a rampage’ (LaFond & Durham, 1992, 33); labels that intricately connects the suspected murderer to mental disorder. Second, mental health practitioners have been swift to reveal what they see as the prejudice and pointless imprisonment of mentally ill people for minor offences, which the experts typify as the unnecessary interference of the criminal justice system into the area of mental health (ibid). Both interpretations of reality have a generally central point of view that deinstitutionalization is at the core of the predicament; furthermore, both perspectives sensibly give rise to a claim for rehospitalization of people with mental disorder, either for the reason that they are incapable of living in civilized society or quite weak to survive a narrow-minded intolerance and mistreatment of society (LaFond & Durham, 1992). The root is identical, the solution is identical, and the only thing that has been inadequate is empirical research of what we all believe to be obvious: ‘that deinstitutionalized mental patients either are criminals or are treated like criminals’ (Bean, 2003, 141).