Ask students to watch "The New Asylum" Frontine video on the PBS website (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/view/). Note. This link takes you directly to the PBS website, which and you will leave the university site. Facilitate a class discussion by asking students some or all of the following questions about the movie.
1. What percentage of the U.S. jail and prison population is diagnosed with mental illness?
2. Why do you think many individuals with mental illness end up behind bars? What are the major causes? What is some possible prevention?
3. What percentage of the female prison population is diagnosed with mental illness?
4. What is the racial breakdown of mental illness in prison?
5. Do the inmates with mental illness serve longer or shorter sentences than the general inmate population?
6. Do individuals with mental illness have higher recidivism rates than the general inmate population?
7. What's being done to address recidivism?
8. How difficult is it to provide mental health care inside a prison?
9. What is segregation and how does it affect those with mental illness?
10. What are communities doing to tackle this problem?
11. At the national level, are there any efforts underway to help people with mental illness who are in prisons and jails?
12. What can citizens do to improve the treatment of those with mental illness, especially those in prisons and jails?