Great documentary on the Mentally Ill in the Ohio Prison system

I watched this documentary last night on PBS. I found it very interesting. Here is the link to watch it online:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...tm_source=grid

wow really good documentary, it sure makes me absolutely grateful to be living in Canada, where health care and mental health care is available at no charge to anyone.

I totally agree!

This looks like a great documentary. I can't wait to watch it. I added it to my wish list for Christmas lol.

I watched it as well. I found it very interesting and disturbing at the same time. My heart really went out to them!

I found it was really heart breaking. How can we expect a person to stay well when he or she gets released from prison with 2 weeks of meds and a mental health contact? At times I feel some people look at a person with a mental illness as less of a person. Almost like we're disposable. I hope by having documentaries like these it will raise awareness for mental health issues.

You know it brings up a big question about the institutionalization closures that they thought was for the best.I mean i know it was a good thing, but what about the safety of those people who had spent their life in an institution, who were just set free, with no help or anything. What about the safety of the rest of the community? It seems they just cared about making people free...but what they didnt realize was they gave people people freedom for sure, but with it also the freedom to die in the street, to harm others, to clog up other institutions like the prison system. I really think they should have turned those state run institutions into some kinda transitional housing, where people could learn everyday living skills, where they could be taken care of and be given thier medications, food, shelter, therapy. Basically just like those homeless shelters that they showed, i mean the building is there, and the state was already paying for the institution, why not just continue on, only make it volunteery instead of mandatory right?

There are transitional houses like this in Ohio unfortunately there are very few and many of the tenants there will be there long term if not for the rest of their lives. The idea of freedom is different for each person. For some depending on the severity of their illness, support network, med resistance etc. being in some sort of housing or hospital that provides daily mental health monitoring and support is necessary for the rest of their life.

I appreciate that I have been able to function very well since my diagnosis and haven't been inpatient since then. But I remember how bad I was when I was committed and if I didn't improve I couldn't be left on my own.

That was very good. Thank you for sharing with us