Michigan prisoner/essay writer Ricardo Ferrell pleads for an end to “warehousing” the mentally ill!

"Today, roughly 10,000 inmates have been diagnosed as severely mentally ill...just under 25%. Although the MDOC has established Mental Health Services that provides prison-based mental services to prisoners with serious mental illness/severe disorder, they are still lacking in meeting the needs of this group. Mostly, you will see many of these people on any given day functioning with heavily prescribed various psychotropic medications. The extensive counseling and psycho-therapy aspect the severely mentally ill need is missing and the treatment received lacks any real substance and value. With 95% of all Michigan prisoners eventually going to be released, one would think that those who suffer from mental illness would be properly assessed and treated by a Qualifed Mental Health Professional. However, the main objective seems to be simply putting this special needs group on psych meds and sending them on their merry way.