In America, 2.3 million people-a population about the size of Houston's, the country's fourth-largest city-live behind bars. Sick Justice explores the economic, social, and political forces that hijacked the criminal justice system to create this bizarre situation. Presenting frightening true stories of (sometimes wrongfully) incarcerated individuals, Ivan G. Goldman exposes the inept bureaucracies of America's prisons and shows the real reasons that disproportionate numbers of minorities, the poor, and the mentally ill end up there. Goldman dissects the widespread phenomenon of jailing for profit, the outsized power of prison guards' unions, California's exceptionally rigid three-strikes law, the ineffective and never-ending war on drugs, the closing of mental health institutions across the country, and other blunders and avaricious practices that have brought us to this point. Sick Justice tells a big, gripping story that's long overdue. By illuminating the system's brutality and greed and the prisoners' gratuitous suffering, the book aims to be a catalyst for reform, complementing the work of the Innocence Project and mirroring the effects of Michael Harrington's The Other America: Poverty in the United States (1962), which became the driving force behind the war on poverty.
This award-winning book was one of the first to give the public an understanding of how thoughts and attitudes affect the body. It's author, Dr. Blair Justice, is a professor of health psychology and a longtime researched at the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center in mind-body medicine. Provides a clear explanation on what causes one to get sick and the pivotal role of thoughts and feelings. Looks at the relationship between happiness and health and explains why there is a connection. Recognizes the increasing level of stress in everyday life while providing ways of coping that will maintain health. Examines what determines how long one will live and how healthy one will be in old age. (No, genes are far from being the whole story.) Explores the powerful effects of warm, close relationships in protecting one against illness and premature death.If you are looking for a well-documented and clearly written overview of current thinking in the fieldstart with Who Gets Sick. New York Times
How We Do Harm exposes the underbelly of healthcare today—the overtreatment of the rich, the under treatment of the poor, the financial conflicts of interest that determine the care that physicians' provide, insurance companies that don't demand the best (or even the least expensive) care, and pharmaceutical companies concerned with selling drugs, regardless of whether they improve health or do harm. Dr. Otis Brawley is the chief medical and scientific officer of The American Cancer Society, an oncologist with a dazzling clinical, research, and policy career. How We Do Harm pulls back the curtain on how medicine is really practiced in America. Brawley tells of doctors who select treatment based on payment they will receive, rather than on demonstrated scientific results; hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that seek out patients to treat even if they are not actually ill (but as long as their insurance will pay); a public primed to swallow the latest pill, no matter the cost; and rising healthcare costs for unnecessary—and often unproven—treatments that we all pay for. Brawley calls for rational healthcare, healthcare drawn from results-based, scientifically justifiable treatments, and not just the peddling of hot new drugs. Brawley's personal history – from a childhood in the gang-ridden streets of black Detroit, to the green hallways of Grady Memorial Hospital, the largest public hospital in the U.S., to the boardrooms of The American Cancer Society—results in a passionate view of medicine and the politics of illness in America - and a deep understanding of healthcare today. How We Do Harm is his well-reasoned manifesto for change.
Three years ago, when I first met Talbert Faircloth and his wife, Dora, I found it very hard to believe the story that they told me. Talbert was sick at the time, and jobless and angry. Two years earlier he had been carried breathless out of the cotton mill on a stretcher, never to return to work again. I found it hard to believe that thousands of workers in the South's largest and oldest industry could have been afflicted by a crippling disease for years and not have known that they had it or even what caused it. In time, I learned that Talbert's story — like that of 35,000 other Southern textile workers — was so wrought with truth and so difficult for the region's most powerful industry to accept, that it had been suppressed and ignored for decades. A year ago, during a conference at Highlander Center in Tennessee, I first heard Les Falk recount his experiences as medical administrator for the United Mine Workers Health and Retirement Fund. The conference brought together doctors, nurses, organizers and health workers from across the South to discuss topics and articles for this health issue of Southern Exposure and to share common experiences in the health field. Les Falk's recollections of the UMWA Fund's battles with entrenched coal company doctors during the early 1950s gave our gathering of Southern health activists a sense of rootedness in our region's tradition of struggle and innovation in organizing health care.
"For a myriad of reasons the criminal justice system has become the de facto mental health system in the United States. The third edition of The Criminalization of Mental Illness thoroughly explains these reasons, and describes in detail specialized law enforcement responses to people with mental illness (PWMI), mental health courts, jails and prison conditions, and discharge planning for this group. The third edition also includes examples of crises involving PWMI that end up driving policy, examines how therapeutic jurisprudence can be utilized to improve responses to PWMI and to ameliorate the inhumane and costly recycling of PWMI through the criminal justice system, and provides insight from criminal justice practitioners, in their own words, about the challenges both PWMI and practitioners face in the system and efforts to overcome them. This edition also examines the tension throughout the system when attempting to balance public safety and civil liberties. The concept of defunding the police and the impact of the Affordable Care Act on PWMI are considered as well"--
People make wish each moment and each time through out life time. Some come to past others were left undone. Have you ever wonder about love, have you ever wonder about justice, have you ever wonder about how this world will appear in the next 10 to 100 years or more. Are you asking question about future America. Are you wondering about the kind of thought the next european fellow and those of Australia should hold in the next 100 years about this world and justice. Are you feeling the pulse coming from african or the heart beat of those in Asia. After reading through this book feel free to get back to me.
An urgent exposé of the mental health crisis in our courts, jails, and prisons America has made mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital. As many as half of all people in America's jails and prisons have a psychiatric disorder. One in four fatal police shootings involves a person with such disorders. In this revelatory book, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice system to show how and why it has become a warehouse where inmates are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make them sicker. Through intimate stories of people in the system and those trying to fix it, Roth reveals the hidden forces behind this crisis and suggests how a fairer and more humane approach might look. Insane is a galvanizing wake-up call for criminal justice reformers and anyone concerned about the plight of our most vulnerable.
For a myriad of reasons the criminal justice system has become the de facto mental health system. This book explores how and why this is the case. Sensationalized cases often drive criminal justice policies that can sometimes be impulsively enacted and misguided. While there are chapters that examine competency, insanity, and inpatient and outpatient commitment, the primary focus of the book is on the bulk of encounters that clog the criminal justice system with persons with mental illnesses (pwmi). Criminal justice practitioners are often ill-equipped for dealing with pwmi in crises. However, via application of therapeutic jurisprudence principles some agencies are better preparing their employees for such encounters and attempting to stop the inhumane and costly recycling of pwmi through the criminal justice system. Coverage runs the gamut from deinstitutionalization, to specialized law enforcement responses, to mental health courts, to jails and prisons, to discharge planning, diversion, and reentry. Also, criminal justice practitioners in their own words provide insight into and examples of the interface between the mental health and criminal justice systems. Throughout the book the balance between maintaining public safety and preserving civil liberties is examined as the state's police power and parens patriae roles are considered. Reasoned, collaborative approaches for influencing and informing policies that are often driven by crises are discussed; this book also reflects more psychological underpinnings than the 1st edition, as one of the co-authors new to this edition is a forensic clinical psychologist. The following Teaching Materials are available electronically on a CD or via email (Please contact Beth Hall at [email protected] to request a copy, and specify what format is needed): -Teacher's Manual with notes and extensive test bank in Word/pdf formats -Test bank is also available in separate files by chapter in Word and Blackboard formats. Other LMS formats may be available; let me know what you need.) Upon adoption only, the following are also available: -3 Videos. Upon adoption only. One video illustrates Crisis Intervention Team scenarios, another explores PTSD and the third video is of a lecture author Risdon Slate gave to law enforcement in training that describes his own personal story. -PowerPoint slides will be available upon adoption. Email [email protected] for more information. “I am so grateful that I have decided on this book and the resources are amazing.” — Joseph C. Marinello, lecturer in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, UNC Charlotte (on classroom adoption of second edition) “Notorious criminal cases tend to drive public opinion and policy when it comes to how our criminal justice system deals with persons with mental illnesses. Drs. Slate and Johnson’s book is a far brighter star to steer by. By most accounts, including the US Department of Justice, our criminal justice system is in crisis. In The Criminalization of Mental Illness the authors explain how our justice system has failed persons with mental illnesses, the public and its own self-interests. But rather than place blame, the authors focus on illuminating the history and anatomy of the problem and offering real solutions. Because they are based on careful scholarship, their proposals are authoritative and make sense. But it is their informed empathy for all the players involved in the tragedy—not just persons with mental illnesses—that makes this book a must read for anyone involved in the criminal justice system or simply interested in knowing the truth of how it is broken and can be fixed.” — Xavier F. Amador, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, Columbia University, Author of the National Best Seller I am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help! and I’m Right, You’re Wrong, Now What? “The book confronts myths and social/political policy failures directly; and with great honor recognizes those advocates whose work has moved social justice and mental health policy forward. [Their] dedication and passion to the subject of promoting human rights and recovery is evident in every word. It is a masterful, relevant and inspiring work.” — Ginger Lerner-Wren, the nation’s first mental health court judge and member of the President’s Commission on Mental Health “[This book] provides extraordinary insights into the manner by which people with mental illness are processed through the criminal justice system… I thoroughly enjoyed this work and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in issues involving mental illness and the criminal justice system. I have seen a few books in this area, but have never found one quite as comprehensive and well-researched. It is, without exception, one of the best academic books that I have read in many years.” — Penn State, Altoona, Professor Robert M. Worley in his book review for The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, Fall 2008 “This is a highly insightful and important book which corrections staff, academics, students, and the general public should know about.” — Ken Kerle, Ph.D, American Jail Association “Overall this very readable book provides a good survey of the various sectors of thecriminal justice system and their response to the substantive changes that have affected persons with mental illness during the recent past. These authors provide a valuable guide for mental health professionals interested in appropriate treatment and placement of persons with mental illness.” — Frederick J. Frese, Ph.D., Psychiatric Services: A Journal of the American Psychiatric Association “Without a doubt, it is the most comprehensive explanation of what has happened between the two systems during the past 40 or so years. It explains not only the crisis that exists and how we got here, but some interesting and innovative ways that local governments are providing solutions… [M]ore important than the chronicling of the impact of this social crisis, it demonstrates with pointed examples how the two systems intertwine with well-intentioned judicial and treatment policies. No matter how you view the issue of the mentally ill in prison, the book demonstrates that the person left out of the discussion is the defendant/offender/patient.” — Corrections Today
