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Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness Hardcover – April 3, 2018

by Alisa Roth (Author)

22 customer reviews

in Mental Health Law

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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.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A searing exposé about the criminalization of mental illness.... Though the subject matter dictates that much of the book is relentlessly depressing, the author is such a talented information gatherer and fluid stylist that the narrative becomes compulsive reading. An eye-opening book that cries out for change."―Kirkus Reviews

"Alisa Roth lays bare the true costs of incarcerating, rather than attempting to help, our nation's mentally ill citizens.... Insane is a sobering and profoundly important read for any American with a conscience."―Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy

"With heartbreaking stories of suffering, Alisa Roth shines a much-needed light on the crisis that afflicts the overwhelming number of mentally ill people locked away behind bars, where they are not treated but abused. This is essential reading for anyone who cares about how our country treats its most vulnerable citizens."―David Cole, national legal director of the ACLU, and author of Engines of Liberty: How Citizen Movements Succeed

Alisa Roth's Insane provides an anatomy of our troubled system of dealing with people with mental illness who commit crimes.... Extensively researched and exquisitely written, Insane is a must read for policymakers, mental health professionals, mental health consumers and their families, and the general public."―Elyn R. Saks, author of The Center Cannot Hold

"Alisa Roth's Insane clearly and objectively lays out the extent and history of our abandonment of the mentally ill while setting forth thoughtful pathways forward.... This book should be required reading for any person involved with the criminal justice system or legislatures."―Thomas J. Dart, sheriff of Cook County, Illinois

About the Author

Alisa Roth is a former staff reporter for Marketplace and frequent contributor to various NPR programs. A Soros Justice Fellow, her work has also appeared in the New York Review of Books and New York Times. She lives in New York.

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (April 3, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465094198
ISBN-13: 978-0465094196
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 22 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Books > Law > Health & Medical Law > Mental Health
- #6 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Bipolar
- #8 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Schizophrenia

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Mark Obbie

Startling and essential reporting on one of our most important justice and health challenges

April 23, 2018

Verified Purchase

Anyone who follows criminal justice policy issues has heard the adage: Our jails and prisons have become America's de facto mental health care system. But how did that happen, what does that look like inside the system, and what can be done now? Alisa Roth's meticulously reported book answers those questions with first-hand reporting that will outrage you, turn your stomach, and make you see these problems as the emergency that they are. After every mass shooting, the second-most common refrain (after "thoughts and prayers") is the pronouncement that we should address our mental health needs. Well, America, here's what you need to know to get started on that (if you're actually serious about it).

7 people found this helpful8 people found this helpful

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D. Boyer

Great book - much needed

July 16, 2018

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Alisa Roth adds to the required reading list for prison litigators, social justice advocates, politicians, mental health reformers, family members and anyone else that is concerned about the crisis in our prison mental healthcare system. Her writing style is academic in her abundant use of references to source material, but also literary in style as she uses real-life characters to paint the story of this tragedy. In fact, for such a dense preparation of this topic, I found it difficult to put it down because of Roth's writing style.

This isn't a one-sided diatribe against the prison system. The book balances the horrific stories of several prisoners with the noble efforts of many staff members and administrators. While largely depressing, the author does point to some success stories upon which to build an improved system.

Great book - much needed!

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

A must-read for sheriffs, police, correctional personnel, ...

July 5, 2018

Verified Purchase

A must-read for sheriffs, police, correctional personnel, State Attorneys. anyone who is employed in law enforcement. To hopefully educate and have a clearer picture of what is happening with the mentally ill all across this country.

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

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Christine

Sensitive and Complex Topic

August 1, 2018

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Very difficult topic that has so many faucets and complexities i admire her taking on the subject. She covers the history and distinguished the limitations of common practices of the criminal justice system as seen through the lens of mental illness. She distinguishes between outlier enforcement behaviour and common practices that may or may not make society and the ill worse. She has deep insight into the topic and provides me insight into a topic i never had and now can understand.

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Dante's Inferno appears to be no worse a place than the jails and prisons used to confine the mentally ill.

January 13, 2018

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Insane: America’s Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness is one of the most disturbing and depressing books I have ever read. From beginning to end author and reporter Alisa Roth tells the story of the dreadful treatment many mentally ill people receive in the jails and prisons throughout the United States.

The first question many readers may ask is: Why mentally ill people are in jails and prisons instead of mental institutions where they can receive treatment by qualified doctors and nurses committed to their care and well-being? Roth gives the answer in the chapter of her book called The Asylum Fallacy. She notes that in 1950 around 450,000 people were receiving care in mental health facilities. By the year 2000 many of those hospitals were shut down and only 170,000 mentally ill people were being served by institutions dedicated to caring for them. Sadly, large numbers of the mentally ill now on the street and in the community found themselves in trouble with the police and were confined in jails and prisons, places ill equipped to care for them.

In chapter after chapter Roth describes the horrendous treatment the mentally ill receive once they are incarcerated in jails and prisons that have no means of adequately caring for them. Dante’s Inferno is no worse place than the solitary confinement of seriously ill people who now often spend weeks and months completely isolated from other human beings in cells that are often no larger than closets. Often their cells are so filthy with urine and fecal matter the sick prisoners have smeared on walls and floors that it is almost impossible to breath the air without getting nauseous.

When a mentally ill prisoner is removed from his cell he puts his arms through the slot in the door and then is handcuffed first and his feet shackled next before he can leave his cell. Rarely do mentally ill prisoners have a chance to see the light of day or interact with other people. Their life is one of extended misery and many of these sick people commit suicide to free themselves of the burden of their miserable lives. Roth notes that ‘One of the most tragic effects of solitary is the extent to which it renders ostensibly sane people mentally ill – sometimes profoundly so.” To isolate a mentally ill person who needs care seems like a criminal act in itself, yet this is precisely what is happening in jails and prisons in the United States today.

In the conclusion of her polemic on the mistreatment of the mentally ill in America’s jails and prisons, Alisa Roth says that “We have known for more than two hundred years that keeping people with mental illness locked up in jails and prisons does little but make them worse. We know how to lock up masses of people. Now we need to figure out how to treat them.” Readers of this review know that the answers to the problem of caring for the mentally ill won’t come cheap. Instead of building more jails, we need hospitals where the mentally ill can receive the right diagnosis and treatment for their illness and then follow-up in the community when they are able to resume their life in society.

Alisa Roth’s book is clearly written and well-argued. Perhaps it is longer than it needs to be. I got the idea early that America’s treatment of mental illness is often criminal and irresponsible and as I read story after story of the horrendous treatment of sick people in the jails and prisons all over the country I said to myself, “Enough! I get the picture. Now, what’s to be done about it?” Sadly, few answers are forthcoming in Roth’s book and I don’t blame her for not having any magic bullet to solve so complex, expensive, and difficult a problem. I would like Roth’s book to be a best seller because I think it is important for as many people as possible to understand that we need to help, not punish mentally ill people. What I have said sounds so obvious and so much like common sense until you read Roth’s book. She says, “If, as it is sometimes said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, then there is little doubt that it is we, who continue to expect the nearly impossible from those least-equipped to handle it, are the crazy ones.” I agree.

17 people found this helpful18 people found this helpful

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Mike G

Five Stars

June 13, 2018

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Great, in-depth reporting.

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