A Social Model of Mental Illness: The Key to Liberating Incarcerated Women from Ineffective Mental Health Treatment

An assessment of public health literature suggests that correctional institutions have adverse effects on the mental health of prisoners, and this article responds to this issue by putting the current medical model of mental illness as it is applied in the criminal justice system under a critical lens, analyzing how it has proven insufficient in providing better mental health outcomes for inmates with mental illness. An expansion of the social model of mental health is proposed, one that is grounded in the belief that consideration of the social determinants of mental health is paramount to understanding why the mentally ill are disproportionately brought into the criminal justice system in the first place. Furthermore, federal studies have shown that incarcerated women experience mental health conditions at disproportionate rates, despite making up a smaller proportion of the prison population. Explaining this gender disparity has been an emerging area of research in criminal justice and mental health reform, and this article explores it by analyzing how the prison environment perpetuates it, investigating specific social circumstances that are particularly triggering to the mental health of incarcerated women, such as separation from children and increased exposure to sexual abuse and domestic violence. The article concludes with an examination of a case study of how the expanded social model is currently being applied to the specific context of incarcerated women’s mental health, demonstrating its effectiveness and advocating for the widespread implementation of similar initiatives.