Inadequate Mental Health Resources In African-American Communities Has Created A Mental Health Crisis, Especially The Incarceration Of African-American Males

Abstract: 104 pages in length. The extent to which mental illness reaches into the recesses of contemporary society is both vast and far-reaching. That millions of people with various stages of mental illness continue to exist as functioning members within today's global community speaks to the notion that mental imbalance is even more prevalent now than ever before. Clearly, all types of mental illness cannot be classified within the same parameters as one another, inasmuch as there are varying levels of severity that dictate just how functional an individual might be within the confines of social dictates. Someone with clinical depression is considered mentally ill on one end of the scale, while a schizophrenic is regarded as a contrasting representation of severe mental dysfunction. Society has not been very successful in addressing its mental illness problem; one only has to witness the nation's tremendous homeless population, obtain criminal justice statistics and examine the number of people currently taking psycho tropic medication in order to underscore the prevalence of mental illness. Understanding the origins of mental health is paramount to gaining further understanding of how to address the social, political, economic and personal issues directly associated with mental illness, which requires the examination of myriad cultural and genetic elements that have been suspect in the study of human behavior. At the focus of such examination will be a clear illustration of how inadequate mental health resources are in general, with particular attention paid to the deficiency of such services within African-American communities, a problem that has created a mental health crisis directly associated with the incarceration of African-American males. Bibliography lists 88 sources.

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Subcatagory: Theses & Dissertations

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