Mental Health and Incarceration
Class
About this Module
About the Module
Author
Anne Parsons is an Associate Professor and Director of Public History in the Department of History at UNC Greensboro. Dr. Parsons creates historical projects in ways that engage people with the world around them, focusing on topics such as mental health, mass incarceration, LGBTQ history, and disability history. She is the author of the book From Asylum to Prison: Deinstitutionalization and the Rise of Mass Incarceration after 1945 (UNC Press: 2018) and has published articles in publications that include the Radical History Review, the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, and the Journal of Illinois History. To fund her research, Dr. Parsons has received an Open Society Foundation Soros Justice Media Fellowship and grants from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library Company, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia Historical Medical Library. Dr. Parsons served as the guest curator for the National Library of Medicine traveling exhibition Care and Custody: Past Responses to Mental Health.
Suggested Use
This educational module is a companion to the exhibition and website Care and Custody: Past Responses to Mental Health. In this module, undergraduate and graduate students gain new perspectives on mental health and incarceration by studying the historical roots of these issues. Students learn about the historic asylums of the nineteenth century, which sought to address the incarceration of people with mental health conditions but led to new forms of confinement. They will also study social reform efforts to create an inclusive world without prisons or asylums in the twentieth century and the reasons that vision failed to fully come to fruition.
Each lesson can be adapted for classes ranging from one to three hours. Each class includes readings, discussion questions, and engaging activities that instructors can tailor to fit their classes. This module is appropriate for students in classes in the following subjects; criminology, history of medicine, disability studies, the health sciences, history, psychology, and social work.
Objectives
After completing this higher education module students will be able to:
- Understand how history offers new perspectives on the mental health and criminal justice systems.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the over–incarceration of people with mental health conditions throughout history and the ways people responded to make change.
- Evaluate multiple, opposing views on mental health and criminal justice reform in the past and present.
- Describe past efforts to reduce the use of incarceration in mental health and to create a more inclusive society.
- Analyze the content, perspective, and significance of scholarly publications and historical documents.
