Argumentative Essay On Asylums

In today’s society, hearing the word “asylum” arises a tinge of fear and uncertainty as we ponder over our memories of hearing horror stories about the now abandoned psychiatric units. Although there were truths within these stories of fearful shock treatments, neglected patients, and general mayhem within facilities, in modern times, mental hospitals are no longer a place of malevolence. But, on the contrary, very few psychiatric hospitals exist and their waiting lists are long; therefore, the ones who cannot succeed in making the list eventually end up without a home or are even unconstitutionally submitted to aid to their illnesses through prisons, medical hospitals, and even nursing homes. Unfortunately, for these patients, they receive
Understaffing in prisons happens to be a main reason as to why these ill inpatients are not getting cared for. They are receiving insufficient care as few people are trying to perform a job usually executed by many. If these people were placed in mental institutions they will be given ample individual care unlike in most understaffed de facto asylums. Not only are officials in prisons undertreating mentally unstable convicts, but when they are given punishments for wrong behavior officers perform these acts incorrectly, often with violence. The most usual case scenario is when an inpatient acts out, they are placed into solitary confinement: locked in a quiet cell, left alone with their thoughts. To just an ordinary prisoner, this can be enough to cause anxiety, depression, anger, paranoia, and multiple damaging psychological effects. Can you imagine how this could affect a mentally ill inpatient? A person who is already experiencing an array of these mental challenges does not stand a chance for recovery in this environment. Putting a mentally unstable prisoner into solitary confinement will exacerbate their symptoms and cause their outbreaks to recur more often. Asylums will allow a safe environment with social interaction, the opposite of the care prisons are providing. On the other hand, when an inpatient is not put into solitary confinement, they are dealt with in other means, by force and violence. Advisor at Human Rights Watch, Jamie Fellner details the brutality inside prisons between officers and the mentally ill by presenting inpatients have “been beaten until their bones are broken and organs are injured, deluged with chemical sprays, shocked with electric stun devices, and strapped to chairs and beds for days” (Fellner). Fellner even goes as far to