October 27, 2013 Re New tactics on mentally ill inmates, Oct. 24 It is distressing to read a correctional psychiatrists assertion that psychotic prisoners would have no memory of being repeatedly pepper-sprayed and have a higher than average threshold for pain or noxious stimuli. The claim that psychotic illness would prevent a person from remembering physical pain has no basis in science. Regarding pain thresholds, a growing body of literature documents post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in psychotic people subjected to excessive force. Since the defunding of public psychiatry in the 1980s, prisons have increasingly played a custodial role for people who are severely mentally ill. As a society, we have chosen to treat such people as criminals first and patients second. The results: huge bills, little healing and the brutality The Times describes. Thomas R. Blair, MD Los Angeles The writer is a psychiatry resident at UCLAs Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 17:22:58 +0000
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