Book description
Hundreds of thousands of the inmates who populate the nation's jails and prison systems today are identified as mentally ill. Many experts point to the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals in the 1960s, which led to more patients living on their own, as the reason for this high rate of incarceration.…
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Why read it?
1 author picked Crime, Punishment, and Mental Illness as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
More than anything else I have read, this book helped me understand the relationship between crime and mental illness in the United States. The book explore some really fascinating case studies (for example, school shooter Kip Kinkel).
But the bigger contribution is how the authors sort out the core ideological approaches of the law versus the social sciences (including psychology and psychiatry.) They show how the law is rooted in philosophical and religious ideas about good, evil, and free will. In contrast, the social sciences use complex empirical observations and theories to explain human behavior.
The best chapter, in my…
From Susan's list on mental illness, drug use, trauma, and crime.
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