Babatunde O. Adekson, PhD Student, Counselor Education and SupervisionWarner School of Education and Human Development, University of Rochester.

Structural and Public Stigmas in the American Probation System: Effect of Deinstitutionalization on Criminalization of Mental Illness.

IntroductionThere is a need to contextualize the structural and public stigmas experienced by offenders/probationers with mental illness (PMIs) within the probation system as evolving from the movement to deinstitutionalize mental health care. The negative public perception about individuals with mental illness was strengthened by the social and communal frustrations caused by deinstitutionalization (i.e., increase in untreated mentally ill individuals in the community). It was also dependent on the socio-historical beliefs about mental illness and about deviant behavior in American culture. There are convergent themes used in the literature to describe the series of promises and consequences inherent in the mental health public policies and social programs of the late 1950s and 1960s coined as deinstitutionalization. The basic premise of this policy was the closure of psychiatric hospitals, with the transition of the most psychiatrically-impaired individuals into community based medication-assisted and/or psychosocial treatments, and the transition of other less impaired individuals to their families and into the community (Durham, 1989; Lamb, 1998; Lamb, 2001; Morrow, Dagg & Pederson, 2008; Newton, Rosen, Tennant, Hobbs, Lapsley & Tribe, 2000; Palermo, Gumz &Liska, 1992). Deinstitutionalization is in some ways responsible for the systemic disintegration of community based treatment and the decompensation and criminal institutionalization of cohorts of individuals with mental illness. The argument is that these individuals would have been able to access services from the once functional psychiatric hospitals or obtain services from community mental health centers (Chaimowitz, 2011;Lurigio, 2011). Consequentially, one of the major consequences of the policies of deinstitutionalization is stigma: the opinion that an attribute such as having mental illness is discrediting and warrants an aggressive reaction from society (Corrigan, 2005; Goffman, 1963).

Definitions of stigmaGoffman (1963) defined stigma as an attribute constructed because of a perceived or actual discredited inadequacy, defect, or handicap. According to this definition, stigma then is reinforced based on the relationship between these attributes and the series of socially constructed stereotypes about that individual’s discredited imperfections.

Institutional practices and relatedness to structural stigmaInstitutional practices “formed by sociopolitical forces [that] represent the policies of private and governmental institutions [has been identified as a barrier counterproductive to] the opportunities of stigmatized groups” (Corrigan, Watson, Heyrman, Warpinski, Gracia, Slopen & Hall, 2005). Structural stigma arises because of the prejudices of individuals in power who endorse legislation and organizational rules that discriminate against people with mental illness. Sociologists have also acknowledged that this form of stigma develops as a result of the historic, economic, and political injustices wrought by prejudice and discrimination in the United States (Corrigan & Kleinlein, 2005). The key component of structural stigma is not the intent but rather the effect of mandating certain groups into subordinate positions in society.

Relevant Theories used to explain stigma of mental illness and deviance

Structural stigma results from social forces that develop over many years to limit and in some cases eliminate resources and supports needed (Corrigan & Lam, 2007) to be successful in a very competitive economic and social system. There are two levels of structural stigma found in society: Institutional policies and social structures. Stigma at an individual level of analysis (i.e., public stigma) is the emergence of societal structures that limit and impact the life opportunities of people with mental illness (Corrigan & Kleinlein, 2005). Public stigma is an interactional dynamic perpetuated at the individual and group levels that is based on psychological perspectives, attitudes, and behavior towards a particular person or group. Stigma of criminality and deviance is distinguishable from the stigma of mental illness. The stigmatized criminal is conceptualized as a scapegoat, upon whom aggression is displaced from the frustrating agent and who then turns out to be a catalyst for the “psychic genesis” (Shoham & Rahav, 1982, p. 89) of the stigma.