Dewey Williams, Duke University Divinity School graduate, "Prison: The Wrong Treatment Plan for Mental Health"

Prison: The Wrong Treatment Plan for Mental Health


–Dewey Williams



A person that is diagnosed with a mental health condition will be given a treatment plan so that their care will be tailored to fit their specific diagnosis  This plan will have goals that establish and measure their progress toward addressing their specific needs.  Just like in other medical arenas the treatment plan is essential to moving the client toward a stabilized condition where they can function in their environment and participate in their communities.  A mental health treatment plan cannot be a ‘cookie-cutter’, one size fits all plan that is used from person to person regardless of their presenting struggles.

Persons struggling with mental health will have trouble fitting into the ebb and flow of life that most people seem to find easy to adjust to.  It is these difficulties that partly define their mental health dilemma.  For those with a mental health diagnosis, moving in patterns that most others are moving in triggers thoughts, feelings, and responses that push them to behaviors that might be considered odd, inappropriate, or maybe even illegal.

This is exactly why prison is not the right approach for a person with mental health struggles.  Prison systems generally have a one size fits all method of providing services to those incarcerated.  In prison everyone in a group moves at a designated time to the cadence of the criminal justice system, the administration of the prison facility, or even of an individual correctional officer.  What you eat and what time you eat are regimented.  What time lights come on in the morning and what time they go out at night are regimented.  What time you go out of your cell and what time you go back into your cell is regimented.  Frequently these regimentations are made by persons who have no or little concern for what best aids in treating someone’s mental health needs.

Often those incarcerated are expected to move their bodies like robotic creatures at the commands of Correctional Officers.  These expectations do not allow for individual or independent thinking about the commands.  For the person with mental health concerns their thinking does not always fit into the patterns that people hold as norms.  

Some with mental health struggles have cognitive disorders that impair their reasoning, and their behavior is based on bad mental health programing.  The routines of prison work counter to the way their brain functions.  Others with mental health struggles experience fatigue, loss of interest in activities, and sudden irritabilities.  Again, the routines of prison work against these problems.  Still others with mental health struggles have difficulties regulating their emotions that leads to outbursts or withdrawal.  This is another reason that the regulations of prison do not serve to meet their needs.

All these reasons, and many others, make prison a poor fit for a person with a mental health diagnosis.  Just like a person with a physical ailment sees a doctor and gets an individualized treatment plan for their situation, the person with a mental health ailment needs a treatment plan that is personalized and recognizes and honors them as an individual.  Even when our prison systems recognize someone with a mental health need, they are usually lumped into living as a group or put into a ward or unit in the prison with the incarcerated who have mental health problems and expected to function there as a group. 

Persons with mental health struggles are not served well in prison, they need to be honored with treatment.


DEWEY WILLIAMS is the author of Finding Joy On Death Row: Unexpected Lessons From Lives We Discard, a doctoral candidate at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, and a graduate of Duke University Divinity School.  Dewey’s sermon series Joy on Death Row won the top award at Yale Divinity School’s Theology of Joy and the Good Life competition.


Barbara Elder, after reading Finding Joy On Death Row: Unexpected Lessons From Lives We Discard, “When I read about prisoners on death row and how they find joy. (It is stressed that this is NOT happiness but JOY.), I want to live by these—their—principles the rest of my life.

1. Releasing the pressure to control people and outcomes.

2. Forgiving anyone whom you hold a grievance against, including yourself.

3. Being grateful for the good you experience, constantly.

4. Connecting with others who bless you and whom you can bless.”


_______________


The Clergy and Mental Health Blog is a forum for faith leaders to share insights and observations, sometimes speaking from personal experience, about faith and mental health.  We welcome diversity of thought and perspective.  The view of authors are their own and do not represent the views of the blog as a whole.

Please send comments and questions to: ClergyMHBlog@gmail.com

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