Sarah Masters reviews the film
The New Asylums
Compare the numbers: Close to 500,000 mentally ill men and women are currently serving time in U.S. prisons while only 50,000 mentally ill men and women are receiving treatment in psychiatric hospitals. That’s why many healthcare professionals, sheriffs and corrections officials consider U.S. prisons “the new asylums.”
The Emmy-award winning documentary The New Asylums focuses the camera on Ohio’s state prison system and, with close to unlimited access, film directors Miri Navasky and Karen O’Connor wander through the prison hallways capturing mentally ill inmates attending therapy sessions, serving in “crisis wards,” and undergoing disciplinary tribunals.
The director of the Ohio Department of Corrections tells Navasky and O’Connor that “We are the gatekeepers of a lot of persons who are mentally ill, and that's not something we relish … In addition to being the [prison] director, I’ve become a de facto director of a major mental health system."
The documentary underscores the point that a prison structure is designed to focus on security and not therapeutic management. While the Ohio state prison system actively addresses the issue of mental health in the prison population, most U.S. federal and state prison systems are not, leaving wardens and guards ill-equipped and untrained in the management of disturbed inmates.
Meanwhile, the mentally ill struggle to follow prison rules and many end up in isolation, without the necessary therapy and monitoring. Most of the untreated or inadequately treated mentally ill prisoners are eventually released and thwarted in their efforts to re-enter society.
The New Asylums sheds a light on the dilemma, and on some of the solutions. Certainly, it suggests a role for chaplains both among the imprisoned mentally ill and following their release.
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Completed: 2005
Running Time: 60 Minutes
Directors/Producers: Miri Navasky and Karen O’Connor
If you are interested in purchasing this film, you can do so on the PBS Web site at http://www.shoppbs.org/sm-pbs-frontline-the-new-asylums-edited-dvd--pi-2000133.html. The cost of the DVD is $29.99.
Sarah Masters is the Managing Director of the Hartley Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to production, cultivation, support and distribution of the best documentaries on world religions and spirituality.
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