National Initiative Launched to Get People Out of Prisons and Into Treatment

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The American Psychiatric Foundation has announced the launch of a national collaborative initiative to move people from jails into psychiatric care. The Foundation is the philanthropic and educational arm of the American Psychiatric Association. It’s “Corporate Advisory Council” and major contributors are all pharmaceutical companies.

“The American Psychiatric Foundation today joins other leading organizations in supporting the Stepping Up Initiative, an unprecedented national collaboration designed to generate action in communities across the country for a common goal: to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in U.S. jails,” stated a press release from the American Psychiatric Association. “Stepping Up is being led by the National Association of Counties (NACo), the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and the American Psychiatric Foundation (APF), with support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).”

The APF website identifies its “Foundation Patrons” as Alkermes and Janssen Pharmaceuticals. “Sustaining Members” include Eli Lilly, Lundbeck and Otsuka. “Sponsors” include Genomind, Shire, Sunovion, and
Takeda. All of its listed “Donors” are also pharmaceutical companies.

Reducing the number of people with mental illnesses in US jails (American Psychiatric Association press release on MedicalXpress, May 6, 2015)

American Psychiatric Foundation

23 COMMENTS

  1. Damn, this equation of “treatment” with drugs is probably one of our most serious problems, as neither the politicians, useless as they are, nor 99% of the media question this nonsense. Sure, we have plenty of evidence that psych drugs are almost useless at best, but how do we transform this into public skepticism?

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    • Not sure, no one seems to notice the almost total lack of success stories.

      Much of the public still thinks their ‘mentally ill’ relative who has gotten nothing but worse after exposure to psychiatry is an anomaly.

      No, its the norm.

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      • The lack of success stories is probably why pharma funded NAMI scrapped its old website and discussion boards.

        The old discussion boards were nothing but 1000s of testimonials of nasty reactions to drugs and the futile attempts to find ‘the right meds’ to fix the damage caused by previous years and years of psychiatric drugging with the ‘wrong’ drugs.

        Quick delete all this before they figure it out and turn on us !

        The child drugging section was heartbreaking.

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    • At this stage everyone must know somebody that wasn’t too bad until they sought help and are now more or less psychiatric.

      It is possible to recover completely from crisis with decent non drug help (and to remain recovered). The drugs only work through shutting down the system (dopamine or otherwise).

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  2. …moving people from private, corporate run prisons to Big Pharma sponsored psychiatry…we need to keep showing the harm done with corporate run, corrupt, medical model science and psychiatry and, in contrast, the trauma informed, person-centered alternatives that lead to lasting healing and growth…

    I am thankful for this website…

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    • I agree completely. Have you heard about Tom Stossel’s new book, “Pharmaphobia”?….
      Hope I spelled it correctly…. Heard him on the local radio show….
      Basically, he’s saying that anybody who opposes the current DRUG RACKET of psychs & Pharma in general, is nuts. (….my words, not his. Same idea….)….
      He’s an obvious industry shill, and blatant propagandist. We DO have our work cut out for us….

      I’m thankful for *you*!….

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  3. So what we are actually talking about is not getting people out of prison and into “treatment.” It is moving people from prison cells to minimum security, in this case using drugs and monitoring devices to achieve the same effect as prison in one’s home. Exposing, once again, that psychiatry is a branch of law enforcement, not of medicine. Recognizing this is a key to identifying the problem in a realistic way and developing strategies towards solving it.

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    • “achieve the same effect as prison in one’s home”

      Dream on. Many of these people will be moved into closed wards (I bet there’s money to be made in building and running these just as it is in private prisons) and the only difference is that a short sentence for a nuisance crime will turn into a life sentence without parole.

      In a way this is even “better” than private prisons because one does not have to hope for people re-offending – they will be permanently occupied since the doctors claim the illness is incurable.

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  4. Anybody else notice the FACT that the American Psychiatric Foundation conveniently ignores the FACT that the largest single driver of the increase in the number of “mentally ill” in U.S. prisons has been the rise of PRIVATE, FOR-PROFIT prisons?…. GEO Corp. just got the $$$Contract from the State of Vermont, to house many of VT’s prisoners. It’s easier, and more profitable, for the system to throw some over-drugged “mental patient” into jail, than to go after the REAL CRIMINALS….

    “Drugs are for people who can’t handle REALITY.
    Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs”

    (….and, too many jails and prisons still restrict the numbers and amounts of drugs they will allow
    for their prisoners. Fewer restrictions if the DRUG TOILET, um, I mean, “mental patient” is not incarcerated….

    OK, maybe not rotflmfao, but at least a little lol, ok?…. 🙂

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  5. Thanks but I’ll take prison every time. At least there’s a slim chance that I’ll get out at the end of a sentence and without persistent brain damage.

    It really makes me depressed this narrative is bought into by so many well-meaning people :(.

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    • But aren’t people getting drugged in the prisons as well? I don’t want forced treatment but I don’t want people getting forced treatment in prison where they would be written off not only as ‘crazy’ but also as ‘bad’.

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    • My story goes like this:
      “I was only 15 when my parents took me to a psychiatrist. I was already a confused, abused, regular black-out drunk alcoholic, and was dabbling with street drugs. The *SHRINK* gave me a “diagnosis” – which was bogus – and a PRESCRIPTION. The pseudo-science and DRUG RACKET called “psychiatry” WASTED the best 20 years of my life. Thank GOD I got out when I did, and into A.A. THAT saved my life. I didn’t know, though, that a bogus diagnosis 40 years ago would be the same as “Life Without Parole”….
      Today, my Iatrogenic Neurolepsis and PTSD are very well-controlled and manageable.
      Thanks, B. Keep up the good work, my friend….

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        • PTSD = Personal Touch Sensory Deprivation….( hugs help….)….
          PTSD = People That Suffer Distress….

          You know, Fiachra, I always thought of my PTSD (from multiple causes) and the Iatrogenic Neurolepsis as 2 different things….
          But your “Iatrogenic PTSD” construction works very well.
          Thank you, my friend….
          ( I’m new here, but I’ve read a lot of your other comments, too. I like what you have to say….

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