Excellent book-covers the issues of mentally ill persons and the criminal justice system

books:

	• Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness Pete Earley Berkley Trade, 2007 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 44 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

CRAZY IN AMERICA

This book should be a must read by everyone. It gives frightening details about the plight of the mentally ill. Who would believe that being mentally ill could land you in prison or worse, result in you're being killed by the very people who are entrusted with protecting you? The author's poignant account of his own son's incarceration and legal battles more than alarmed this reader. This is a very important work for our times. Read it.

Excellent book-covers the issues of mentally ill persons and the criminal justice system

The author is an investigative journalist who does an outstanding job of describing not only his own struggles with a mentally ill adult son but also the issues and history regarding the serious problem of mentally ill persons involved in our criminal justice system.

I am currently teaching a university course on Mentally Impaired Offenders. I have made this book a required text for the course.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in mental illness and criminal justice.

Mary White

for more information click here

CRAZY

I have read and purchased over a dozen books to give to people in the community, justice system, mental health, law enforcement, etc. It gives a clear picture of the difficulties loved ones face in getting their mentally ill relative help. Also shows how our criminal justice system has failed to do the right thing and continues to criminalize the mentally ill.

Sad and Shocking!!!!

What an absolutely chilling expose of the mental health treatment system in our affluent country. Or should I say "non-treatment system"? Shameful. Tragically, hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people are out on the streets, not receiving treatment thanks to deinstitutionalization. And the ACLU can take much of the "credit" for this.

Earley's pain comes through in his writing, but he has also managed to distance himself enough to present a well-researched and thoughtful book which educates its readers.

Not only are many of those who are chronically mentally ill in denial as to their disease, so too are our society and the healthcare system in denial.

As another reviewer said, the REAL crime was when we stopped helping the mentally ill, under the guise of protecting their civil rights by turning them out of mental hospitals. Not that those "warehouses" are the answer, but neither is prison or living in a gutter.

for more information click here

"Crazy" by Pete Earley

This is an eye opening account of one mans journey through the US Mental Health System. A must read for anyone who is touched by mental illness. My son suffers from Bi-Polar disorder and going through a similar situation as Mr. Earley's son. I am now an active NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) member and will fight for the rights and protections of all of those who live with mental illness.

Well done Mr. Earley......brilliant book

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley had written extensively about the criminal justice system. But it was only when his own son- in the throes of a manic episode-broke into a neighbor's house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law. This is the Earley family's compelling story, a troubling look at bureaucratic apathy and the countless thousands who suffer confinement instead of care, brutal conditions instead of treatment, in the "revolving doors" between hospital and jail. With mass deinstitutionalization, large numbers of state mental patients are homeless or in jail-an experience little better than the horrors of a century ago. Earley takes us directly into that experience-and into that of a father and award-winning journalist trying to fight for a better way.

for more information click here

hot