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Mental Health Crime And Criminal Justice Summary

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Mental Health Crime And Criminal Justice Summary
Mental Health, Crime and Criminal Justice (Winstone, 2016) is a refreshingly candid look at the challenges related to persons with mental illness(es). Through multiple perspectives, the book sheds light on the often overlooked and behind the scene issues that arise when mentally ill individuals commit crime. The book goes beyond the obvious problems individuals with mental illness face by delving into more obscure but important issues, thus giving the reader a deeper understanding of the material covered in each chapter. Every chapter contributes unique insight to the underlying theme of the book in such a way to indirectly prompt the reader to critically think about the relationship between mental health, crime and criminal justice.

The volume begins with a brief overview and a philosophical discussion of whether individuals with mental illness should be punished. For example, chapter three, Troublesome Offenders, Undeserving Patients?, develops both the argument that individuals with mental health needs have the right to be punished and the argument
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Chapter two is especially powerful as Lucy, a person who suffers from multiple mental illnesses, begins by describing the mental health system as a resource that successfully improved her life. However, upon relapsing years later, the same system aided in the regression of Lucy’s mental health and limited her progress towards a healthier future. Through several mental health misdiagnoses and being forced to “self-admit” into a hospital, Lucy discusses the hardships of having a mental illness in a time where public budgets are being cut and priority is no longer given to treatments for individuals with mental

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