Inmates with Mental Illness Tell Their Stories | AVID Jail Project
The AVID Jail Project hopes that the images and stories we share will bring attention to the crisis of mental health in our criminal justice system and will humanize an issue that is all too easily ignored. As Washington’s protection and advocacy agency, DRW is in a unique position to bring recording equipment into jails to capture and share the experiences of people with disabilities. Most members of the public will never enter a jail and will have no firsthand knowledge of how inmates with mental illness fare inside our jails. Inmates who self-identify as having or who have been diagnosed with a mental health condition, or their family members, may request the AVID Jail Project’s Technical Assistance Services. To learn more, please visit: http://www.avidjailproject.org
Video transcript: https://goo.gl/0K8zVT
25 Comments
This is why I em glad I em stuck in a group home because the world would eat me alive
The sad and raw truth is that police don’t care to help mentally ill people , i speak from first hand experience
Great work. Truely making the world a better place
I'm not here for sympathies or to cry but to share my thoughts. As a mentally ill follower of Jesus I often ask myself if I will ever know what true happiness feels like and what's it like for regular people to feel what they feel. People that think mental illness is a choice are wrong and being productive is very difficult for people like me because of the constant sleepiness, depersonalization, daydreaming just like it is difficult for old people to pick up and carry heavy things because there are reasons on why some people can't carry heavy stuff.
I think he needs helf for life, clear mind, and commutation.
Ummm I’m umm
They don't care it's all about money
Currently writing an argument paper about the justice system. Mental illness in prison is one of my topics thank you for this!
This is what the U.K. is learning now. When you do not provide adequate mental healthcare then prisons end up responsible for the mentally ill. Prison makes them more ill, so then there is an increased need for services. Prison costs at least the same as mental hospitals but because it causes a need for extra remedial treatment it ends up costing extra. Governments need to realise that you save money, in the long term, by providing the needed services in the first place & have a better society. People who have the best help in the first place are most likely to be able to work & support themselves.
Also if you want to be a bit creative you can actually combine some therapies with doing things that will help to pay for the services. For example it is recognised that being part of a community hugely reduces problems with mental health. If for example there was a community based around a vegetable garden & bakery, those needing services could come & put some hours work in, experience being part of a community, with social opportunities such as a choir, which would bring the benefits to mental health that that does, could earn a simple lunch, as good food is vital for mental health, as well as physical, the community could then sell vegetables & bread to help towards the cost of providing treatment.
What I worry about is that there is STILL such a grey area in Mental Illness. No one really knows what to do, mostly because people can be so unpredictable. But by now the world should work harder to help these people. They don’t ask for what they have and the medication they are on should never be withheld. It’s sad there is not a facility between the psychiatric hospitals and the jails, but of course Governments won’t fund that
Yup the revolving door policy of the courts say,if they are on disability let's get them on the payment plan they are good for payments and to fill space in the jails,I know this cause they did just that to my boyfriend for 24 years all he had in the beginning bead autism ,but when they got ahold of him for driving on a suspended it just kept going over and over he didn't have the money to pay crazy high fines due to being on ssi ,come to find out years later they sent supper to asses fines and they certainly weren't supposed to send them to collections,and suspend his licence in the beginning,after that it was non stop harassment from cops pushing him detaning him when ever they saw him running him for warrants this all started in 1991, and it's caused ptsd and athoritative disfigurement disorder depression,they would charge him with crimes and the public defender's would always say plead guilty and you will get out in a while but if you fight it your gonna go to prison ,he has plead to many things he didn't do just so he could get out of jail ,never understanding he was pleading to felony's and misdemeanors it's fkn sick how the courts do this to so meny the old saying of if you don't pay then you will stay is ,nothing short of mental torture.6 years ago he finally got an attorney to send a letter to the court saying that they can't make him pay fines while on ssi so stop or we will bring it to the news ,and just like that they erased his fines and stoped fkn with him ,shame on benton county court house especially the clerks in superior court vile.
I wouldnt wish solitary confinement on my worst enemy. I would rather die than spend 1 year in a segregation cell
Mentally ill people who are displayed on National TV in mass shootings are all unstable. It doesn't matter if they were happy or sad. Once labeled, always labeled by society "as that" mentally ill guy always acted angry, weird, strange. But not the caring father. It's usually goes like… mentally ill killed family member and now is in custody. Media is the problem of showing how people in general behave regardless. Mass shooters, serious crimes, CEO, doctors, lawyers, police officers, hospital staff members could also be killers as well. Then now we are leveling out the playing field
Disgusting 2 months…
Thanks mom.
Wish you could come to Telfair State Prison..
We need to stop calling them inmates and instead call them incarcerated people. By calling them inmates, we view them less than human.
What have these people done?
It’s so sad knowing that just because someone is an adult means, their families don’t get contacted or kept up to date with what is happening.
Those with mental illness shouldn’t just be placed in a cell and left to their own devices. Something bad will happen to them. Whether it’s physically or mentally.
I was diagnosed with MDD. My other co-ward told me that no one will listen to you or understand you once they knew about your illness because for them, it is just a drama and craziness. After 2 weeks staying at the institution, I realized they're right. No one welcomed me nor talk to me after it. Everybody ignores me until now. I guess, I'm still alone in this unfair world , with my unstable mental health.
Why would society torture people that have hard miserable lives for no reason
What the government thinks is that. As soon as you are you are in jail, you can NEVER EVER be a good person again. And that has to stop. America should try to look at what other countrys do. Such as: Norway, Finland or Denmark.
Want a story?! Dm me spent time in 3 in them. I’m bipolar and Leavenworth refused to give my meds.
When i was in jail the only way i could get my meds was if my family members gave the jail my meds so i can get them i was in jail for 4 days in seclusion the whole time cause i was suicidal i assuasted someone for being suicidal and was in jail for it
Former Xanax addict there’s no support in there
“Correctional facilities” aka ‘Federally & State Sponsored Behavioral Control & Indoctrination facilities’ were designed by & for the Plutocracy. Oligarchs don’t like you “stirring up trouble” or living the life you want, so this “correctional facility” is here to “fix you” because we say you’re broken, unsafe, a threat to their ability to maintain the plutocracy as its existed since Arriving in North America . So we will arrest you & deny ALL your freedoms, both physically psychological, and in every other way possible, until we either have you reduced to a medically blanked out drug stupored zombie or a working slave set to support the in place systems of cruelty.