ONE UNFORTUNATE ASPECT OF OVERMEDICATING prison populations is that it implicitly dismisses the problem of mental illness as fundamentally untreatable. Instead of promoting avenues to long-term treatment and psychological well-being, the widespread use of medications seems to promote a worldview in which it is assumed that particularly unruly prisoners have to be drugged simply to keep them under control. Focusing on medication “reveals a common prejudice about inmates with mental illness, that they are noncompliant, difficult to manage, violent, and otherwise undeserving of clinical attention
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