Just Mercy Lesson Plan

How have trends in mental health care intersected with the rise in mass incarceration?

In the late nineteenth century, activists Dorothea Dix and Reverend Louis Dwight led a movement to remove mentally ill people from prison and place them in mental hospitals. Their actions were successful, and soon there were numerous state and private mental hospitals around the country. Unfortunately, this well-intentioned movement had some negative consequences. By the mid-twentieth century, too many people were being institutionalized for things like sexual promiscuity and homosexuality. Treatments at facilities could be oppressive and abusive, and people could be confined against...