Michaela Madsen

Book Report

Social Problems

October 23, 2017

Book: Crazy: A Fathers Search Through Americas Mental Health Madness by: Pete Earley

Theme/Topic: Mental Illness and Criminal Justice

Summary: Crazy: A Fathers Search Through Americas Mental Health Madness is a book that

identifies, further explains, and enlightens its readers to the horrifying details of mental illness.

After a father learns his son has a schizophrenia and is forced to deal with the corrupt and

underdeveloped mental health care in this country, he sets out to find and uncover the stories of

other individuals who are living the potential future of his son. What he discovers is awful and

heartbreaking. While most people believe the mentally ill are receiving the help and resources

they need while being housed in a nice hospital, Pete Earley presents the truth about these poor

outcasts in our society. They are not being treated like humans or even being treated at all. This

book digs into the details behind our current system and how it came to be. Earley researches

various cases and talks to individuals as he personally visits the institutions that are holding the

mentally ill. He sheds light on a subject that, while it is very important and worth addressing, is

often undermined by other problems such as poverty. What is misunderstood, however, is that a

good majority of our homeless are, in fact, mentally ill people who have been thrown on the

street, forced to survive on their own without anything. Earley creates a haven of empathy for

those who are forgotten and in need of so much help.

Evaluation: This book is a very reliable source as the author has done a lot of research by

personally interviewing individuals, visiting institutions, and reflecting on his own life and

experiences with mental illness in his family. This source could be considered biased because the

author is emotionally connected to this topic, but he has done a very good job of looking at all

aspects of the topic and different views regarding mental illness. He is very passionate about

what he has to say because it does hit home, but that doesnt make his research and information

any less reliable. If anything, I think it is more reliable because he is so passionate and invested

in coming to a complete understanding of this social problem. There are a few goals that I have

interpreted from this book. One, is that the author wants to created an awareness of the horrors

that surround us. He wants the community to take a stand and make a difference. Second, he

began doing all this research because of his own personal experience with our broken system

regarding the mentally ill, therefore, another goal is that he wanted to raise awareness of how

common it is and what mental illness does to families and how little help they are given. He

wants to justify his son and his actions while creating some form of justice for all those that are

affected and punished because of their illness.

Facts:

1. Each inmate in the C-wing of the Miami Jail was given an average of 12.7 seconds of

attention.

2. Miami has a larger percentage of mentally ill residents than any other major metropolitan

area (9%)

3. Hundreds of mentally ill prisoners spend 24 hours a day in stark and filthy nakedness

and those who are well enough to work slave away for 12 hours a day, often-times

without a day of rest for years.

 4. Between 1960 and 1980, the number of patients in state institutions plunged from more

that 500,000 to under 100,000 - this was all because of deinstitutionalization

5. Many mentally ill individuals are arrested more than 10 times in their lifetime, often the

numbers can exceed 40 and even 50 times.

6. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) bills itself as the nations voice on

mental illness. It was founded in 1980

7. Abilify (more effective and less expensive drug than Zyprexa- $500 per month) became

the more desired drug used in mental institutions and jails. It cost $250 to $350 a month.

Money is always the concern and it was believed that budget cuts could be taken from the

mentally ill funds.

8. Most mentally ill people are arrested and put in jails rather than given the medical

attention and resources they need. Hospitals often only hold patients for a few days due to

lack of funding and space for many patients to be cared for.

9. By the end of its first year of duty, the CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) in Memphis had

transported 1,533 people to local mental health facilities instead of jails.

10. In Alabama, a young girl had been locked inside a wooden cage for months at a state

hospital and employees had used electric cattle prods to torture patients.

11. There were 507 chronically mentally ill street dwellers in Miami.

12. Alice Ann Collyer had been in jail, the state forensic hospital, and riding on a bus for

between institutions for 1,151 days.

13. The cost of caring for a chronically mentally ill patient in a Florida hospital in 2001 was

$86,000 per year.

Quotes:
 1. If you ask most people today where the mentally ill are in our society, they will tell you

theyre in state mental hospitals. They are wrongthey are in our jails and prisons. -

Judge Steven Leifman, Eleventh Judicial Circuit- Miami, Florida

2. Our loved ones are not in denial of their mental illness, they are unable to recognize that

the feelings, voices, delusions, or irrational thoughts they are experiencing are due to

malfunctions in their brains frontal lobes. Put simply, their brians dont tell them they

are sick. In fact, they tell them just the opposite-that everything is fine. -Rachel Diaz

(helped found the NAMI chapter in Miami in 1980)

3. There is no magical pill out. The most important thing ful all of us to remember is that

our loved ones are sick. They did not ask for these diseases any more than we ask to get

the flu. Remember, too, that we are not the victims. We suffer because we care, but the

mentally ill are the real victims. -Rachel Diaz

4. On the streets, the police saw the mentally ill as dangerous, unpredictable lunatics. In

the hospital, they saw those same people on medication and realized they were someones

brother, sister, child, or parent.

5. The Supreme Court decided that mentally ill persons had the right to refuse medical

treatment, including the taking of antipsychotic drugs, which were being overprescribed

in state mental hospitals to sedate and control patients.

History:

1. In 1960 Kennedy and Congress made a lot of promises, such as, creating a national

network of community mental health centers. These promises were not kept and money

that was set aside to fund these potential health centers were used elsewhere. On October

31, 1963, Kennedy signed a national mental health law that authorized Congress to spend
 up to $3 billion to construct a national network of community mental health centers. It

later turned out to be a cruel lie.

2. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA) made it almost

impossible to get any records on mentally ill patients and inmates who needed attention.

The author was unable to access files to further his research. The mentally ill individuals

HIPPA rights were also being violated by the prisons as ID papers are given to the

doctors of the prisons and attached on the front of each persons cell. No one inside the

jail had come up with a better way of keeping track of its prisoners, nor did they really

care.

3. 1980 was a big year for the mentally ill, and not in a good way. When Cuban dictator

Fidel Castro emptied his mental hospitals into the waves of Cuban refugees fleeing to

Florida from the port of Mariel, the percentage of mentally ill in Miami increased

dramatically by 306 percent. Hospitals were not prepared at all causing overcrowding,

lack of staff, and the mistreating of all its prisoners.

4. Between 1960 and 1980, the number of patients in state institutions plunged from more

than 500,000 to under 100,000. This was called deinstitutionalization. It caused a social

disaster as the patients were thrown out into the world without any connections to help or

community services. They were left to starve and new centers were never financed. They

filled up the streets and began to populate jails. They were no longer sent to hospitals.

This caused overcrowding in the jails where little-to-no help is available to its inmates.

5. Floridas Baker Act of 1972 spelled out when a person could be forced into a mental

hospital. (page 144) It was too restrictive and made it so many individuals who needed

help but, because of their mental illness, werent always aware of their condition and
 would often think that they didnt need help or, in the authors sons case, were

convinced that the pills were poison. Family members were not allowed to take their

loved ones to hospitals and receive help unless the mentally ill patient accepted. Without

their consent, no matter how extreme their condition, they would not be admitted into the

hospital and receive the help they so badly needed.

6. In 1960 Dr. Birnbaums right to treatment theory was published. It was focused on the

premise that mental patients in state hospitals have a constitutional right to treatment. It

gave mentally ill a legal right to demand adequate health care. At the time of this theory,

most patients were locked up in hospitals against their will. They were not discharged

until improvement was made. There were no treatment programs, however, so they were

practically being condemned to a life sentence in prison. This caused an extreme outburst

of questions and concerns regarding this idea. If a state couldnt lock up a person

because he was mentally ill, then at what point could it intervene? It has been unclear

since and the laws have made it almost impossible to allow families, who are searching

the best care for their mentally ill member, to get them the help they need because all the

power has been given to the mentally ill individual. What started out as a good idea

quickly backfired.

7. The Sanbourne v. Chiles case. This is a very important case that caused a lot of

awareness. It was very unfair and Deidra Sanbourne was treated with incredible

carelessness. The family was put through the worst process and caused much heartache

for Deidra, as well as her family. (pages 188-207) She was promised a life that was never

available to her, yet the state and health care officials did nothing to help her. They didnt

treat her like a human. She wasnt well enough to live on her own without any form of
 supervision, yet was told she could. This caused more bad than good. They had

convinced her that she had the ability to be a full functioning individual who didnt have

a chronic mental illness, yet they got her hopes up and they were immediately shut down.

This girl eventually passed away without any family with her to comfort her as her body

failed.

Social Class: The emergence of social class among the mentally ill is very obvious. They are at

the bottom of the line and, without help, have no hope of climbing any higher. Everyone,

especially the prison guards, believe and know that they have a higher status and, therefore, treat

the mentally ill accordingly. They are often treated worse than animals in a zoo and are then

trapped in a labeled box of inability and craziness.

Stigma: Throughout the book, there are a few stigmatisms that surface. To name a few:

Dangerous, incapable, stupid, inhumane, psychotic, mentally unstable, inadequate, mental, crazy,

threatening to society, disgusting, criminals. All individuals struggling with mental illness are

often stigmatized and labeled as one or many of these words. They are seen as completely

different from the norm of society and are often cast out because of these differences. People

are so quick to judge and, as the book discusses, often see them as inflicting their differences

upon themselves intentionally. People dont realize that mental illness is not a choice and is in

fact an illness that is a chemical imbalance within ones brain. This cannot be reversed or

changed and the consequences of this cause mentally ill to be cast out and avoided.

Intersectionality:

1. Gender is discussed in the book regarding the prisons that hold the mentally ill. Males

and females are kept apart, often in different institutions. This is so no one is abused,

sexually harassed, or taken advantage of. Both genders are treated poorly and are usually
 left naked in their cells, isolated from others, sometimes even without a blanket to keep

them warm in the freezing cells. Another role that gender plays in the book is the

relationship between inmates and nurses/doctors as well as relationships among the staff.

Women are treated with little respect and authority. The male inmates often will yell

profane things at the nurses or talk to them in an inappropriate way. Among the staff,

however, the men are fully aware of what they are doing and its not respectful. They

look at women as being the weaker help and not able to defend themselves. The men will

often abuse the inmates and ask the women to leave knowing they wont be opposed to

that. However, there was an instance where one of the nurses stood up for the inmate and

herself and kept a man from being beaten and harassed.

2. Mental illness does not come at a specific age. Someone could be born with an illness or

develop it throughout their lifetime. It is not any better to be born with an illness or

develop it because either way, your life is inevitably altered and affected, as well as those

closest to you. Children do not have the ability to refuse care because they are still under

parent supervision and not legally an adult. Legal adults, on the other hand, can refuse

medication or help and often do because their illness tells them that they are not sick. I

personally think that the older you are the more difficult it is for you because, often, you

are completely on your own without parents to care for you. You couldve worked hard

your whole life to be where you are today and then in an instant, it would be gone and

theres nothing you can do to stop it. It is such a sad thing and no one should have to

endure through this trial alone, regardless of their age.

3. Lastly, ability is discussed a lot, mostly because this book is focused on mental illness

and how it causes the inability for one to have complete control over their life. While
 some can depend on drugs to keep them lucid and functioning, there are so many who

have not been helped and their mental ability to find that help is limited. They often lack

the social skills needed to search out information and have been labeled as crazy or

dangerous, creating a great separation between them and the average individual.

Mental illness causes many things such as: the loss of the ability to control ones

emotions, a loss of every day skills like going to the restroom and putting on clothes, the

inability to carry out complex and even simple tasks, the inability to keep a job, maintain

a healthy, everyday lifestyle and so many more things. Ability becomes a foreign topic to

the mentally ill as the right help is not given to them and as the progress towards change

is minimal and slow-paced.

Reflection: Reading this book has been an incredible experience. I couldnt put it down because

of how emotionally invested one immediately becomes in just the first chapter of the book. I had

no idea any of these issues were going on and how little was being done to help. I dont think

Ive ever viewed mentally ill in this light and it pains me to think about the lives these people

have been forced to live. Nobody deserves this and families shouldnt be torn apart. The author

has been through some of the hardest times emotionally and I cant even imagine what its like to

work with our current systems and limited sources we have established for the mentally ill. This

book was not happy but it was incredibly insightful and full of so much information and love.

There is no way someone could read this and not feel the sudden urge to do everything they can

to help these people, even the ones in our community, get the help and attention they need. I

never knew things were this bad for people struggling through life with mental illnesses. I cant

believe our government is so insensitive to just let these people live on the streets and be tortured

by their own mind, rather than do all they can to give them a new and better life.
 References

Anon. n.d. Citation Machine automatically generates citations in MLA, APA, Chicago,

Turabian, and thousands more! Retrieved October 20, 2017

(http://www.citationmachine.net/).

Earley, Pete. 2006. Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness.

New York City, New York: the Penguin Group.