What Is The Deinstitutionalization Movement

Caryn Cabral
SOC 102-7101
June 2, 2014

The Deinstitutionalization Movement and its
Long Term Effects on Society

Deinstitutionalization is the process of replacing long-stay psychiatric hospitals with less isolated community mental health services for people diagnosed with a mental disorder or developmental disability. Deinstitutionalization has been an overall benefit for most psychiatric patients, but many have been left homeless and without care. Another result is the increase of people in prisons and county jails who have a severe mental illness. Without the proper treatment these people, who are sometimes undiagnosed, can develop drug addiction and substance abuse dependency
About 50-60% of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia, 10-15% was diagnosed with a manic-depressive illness and severe depression, and an additional 10-15% was diagnosed with an organic brain disease, ex. Epilepsy, strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, and brain damage secondary to trauma. The remaining individuals residing in public psychiatric hospitals had conditions such as mental retardation with psychosis, autism, and other psychiatric disorders of childhood, and alcoholism and drug addiction with concurrent brain damage (Torrey,
This belief often caused rejection, stigmatization, victimization, and harassment. These people often only receive fragmented treatment, but most significantly is the inadequate housing opportunities. The mentally ill patients who became homeless now become unsupported and at a high risk for self harm. In a recent study, it was concluded that individuals with a severe mental illness were victims of a violent crime at a rate of 11 times higher than that of the general population (Kliewer, Mcnally, Trippany,