MENTAL PATIENTS IN JAIL

(ANTEBELLUM ERA)

Amy Moore

Period 6

Problem

Dorothea Dix began visiting prisons in 1841, and she found that mentally ill persons were still treated as criminals. She visited more than 800 jails and almshouses, or homes for the poor

People with mental disabilities were treated poorly because people didn’t understand how to control them

Dorothea Dix March 1841 – East

Cambridge Jail The mentally ill were all

housed together in an unheated, unfurnished, and foul – smelling quarters

“the insane do not feel heart or cold”

Causes/Impacts

The popular belief was that the insane would never be cured and living within their dreadful conditions was enough for them

Dorothea’s views of the mentally ill were radical at the timeHer opinions were dramatic

Her Solution She didn’t know the mental processes that were occurring

within these individuals she knew that improving their conditions wouldn’t hurt them

She started out by going to where the mentally ill were housed in different parts of Boston Sent all of her data & delivered it to the Massachusetts

legislature. Her material won legislative support and funds were set aside

for the mentally ill. Traveled to other states and went to jails and almshouses

in a state, created descriptions of the conditions, and prepared a document comparable to the one which proved successful in Massachusetts. Covered all states on the east side of the Mississippi River. Funded 32 mental hospitals, 15 schools for the feeble minded,

a school for the blind, and numerous training facilities for nurses

Culmination Bill for the Benefit of the

Indigent InsaneSet aside acres of Federal land

(benefit of the insane, and the “blind, deaf, and dumb”)

Proceeds distributed to the states to build and maintain asylums.

Bill passed both houses of Congress

1854, President Franklin Pierce vetoed it○ Federal government should not

commit itself to social welfare (properly the responsibility of the states)

Effect of her movement

Indirect inspiration for the building of many institutions for the mentally ill

Created the first generation of American mental asylums

Established:Libraries in prisonsMental hospitalsTraining facilities

Relevance Today Not all mental prisoners are being accommodated

for Receive abuse from staff due to their inability to

function in a prison setting “managing mental disabilities in prisons requires

corrections therapies for disabled prisoners, but unfortunately most prisons today are not equipped to handle the escalating number of prisoners who exhibit signs of mental health problems.”

Many go untreatedPlaced in segregated cells where they are confined

rather than treated

Questions

1. Was the Bill for the Benefit of the Indigent Insane passed or vetoed?

2. How were mentally ill prisoners treated? (the problem)

3. What was the outcome of all the work Dorothea Dix did for the mentally ill?

References

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/dorotheadix.html

http://www.visitingdc.com/president/franklin-pierce-picture.htm

http://www.licensedpracticalnurse.org/famous-nurses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Dix

http://www.insideprison.com/ http://www.mhcca.org/corrections-therap

ies-for-disabled-prisoners.html