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| Dorothea Dix 1802-1887 |
Today we studied Dorothea Dix...she was a prominent social reformer responsible for major changes in the care and treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill. Dorothea spent her early career as a teacher and volunteered teaching Sunday school class at the East Cambridge House of Correction in Massachusetts. At this prison, she witnessed appalling conditions and inhumane treatment of mentally ill individuals. They were housed with violent criminals, left without clothing or heat, chained to the walls and beaten. Dix began a two-year tour of Massachusetts prisons and found similar conditions throughout the state. In 1843, she submitted a report of her findings to the state legislature and lobbied successfully for a bill to build a state mental institution. Dix devoted her life to the advocacy of prisoner and the mentally ill issues in America and around the world.
How would Dorothea feel if she were alive today? Our "more civilized" society has once again discarded the mentally ill to the scarp heap of society...forcing them to fend for themselves on the street (roughly 50% of the homeless have a serious mental illness) or incarcerated (roughly 50% of the nation's current prisoners have a serious mental illness) in some of America's most dangerous prisons.
Watch "Trapped" Clip (7:02) Very troubling!
How could this be that our country does not have adequate care for these our most vulnerable members of society?
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