Dorthea Dix began teaching Sunday school at a prison. She was horrified to see inmates in chains and crowed jail cells. She visited 100’s of jails in Massachusetts.
The prisoners were in for meaningless crimes. There were people who owed money and couldn’t work to pay it off. Mentally ill were also treated very bad they were beaten for acting out. They were whipped and thrown in dirty cells.
She went to the Massachusetts legislature and proposed to stop the ill from being beat and clean up prisons. They agreed to make mental hospitals and cleaned up prisons.
According to http://www.hoptechno.com/book36.htm there are there are over 3,000 mental health organizations throughout the country this shows Dorothea Dix reform was successful.
No comments:
Post a Comment