• Insane

  • America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness
  • By: Alisa Roth
  • Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
  • Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (128 ratings)

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Insane

By: Alisa Roth
Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
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Publisher's summary

An urgent expose of the mental health crisis in our courts, jails, and prisons.

America has made mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital. As many as half of all people in America's jails and prisons have a psychiatric disorder. One in four fatal police shootings involves a person with such disorders.

In this revelatory book, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice system to tell how and why it has become a warehouse where inmates are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make them sicker. Through intimate stories of people in the system and those trying to fix it, Roth reveals the hidden forces behind this crisis and suggests how a fairer and more humane approach might look. Insane is a galvanizing wake-up call for criminal justice reformers and anyone concerned about the plight of our most vulnerable.

©2018 Alisa Roth (P)2018 Tantor

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Great required reading

This book was easy to keep listening to because of the interesting and almost unbelievable stories suffered by those who are locked up, and very difficult to listen to for the same reasons.


This is required reading for a Master of Social Work class related to intersections of mental health, trauma and addiction. It's easy to see how people would turn to substance use to get over the horrors and trauma experienced by those misunderstood and locked up- if they survive solitary confident with their lives or their eyeballs.

We see this in the real world all the time. Law enforcement is there to stop criminals, not babysit sick people. They frequently don't understand confused or unstable mental health problems and treat people as being resistant. Also, there are those who try to pull the wool over the eyes and fake mental illness. After this book the experienced professional will have a far better understanding of what's real, but it will take a lot more to fully understand. More books could be written on the topic and far more investigation done on the topic.

This book clearly helps us understand what a colossal failure the criminal justice system is for those with mental health problems. Conditions are so bad and restrictions so tight that professional volunteers can't even try to help. There needs to be education for law enforcement, corrections officers, and a complete change in laws protecting people from themselves and the system.

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Phenomenal Expose

Loved the fact this author pulled no punches about how the mentally I'll are treated. Also loved the narrator.

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need to read

honestly just how raw this book felt was inspiring, tragic, and informative! I'm grateful to have her access to a book like this

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  • 06-11-23

Mental Health: Informational Read

I would recommend this book!

There are a lot of statistics and facts in this book. It can get boring at times. It took me about a month of listening to it off and on to finish it. But I really enjoyed it! I work in psych hospitals and I see the mental health system failing people on a daily basis! It’s fascinating to hear about the incarceration system side of mental health. So many heart breaking stories!

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Eye Opener to Reality

No matter which side your opinion flows this book is a much needed eye opener for everyone, and a recommended read for any individual involved in our criminal justice system!

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Groundhog Days of Repetitive Dumbass

America, the dutiful dumbasses. We cannot solve social problems because we are a regressive and retributive people. Everyone must feel the pain of our empathy lacking nature.

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Good info, but biased

Feels like a slightly one-sided perspective presenting a loose laundry list of good info on a complex subject. Ok book, neither here nor there.

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The most important read for judges and juries.

I’ll spoil the ending for you. We do not know how to solve mental illness or absolutely put an end to criminal activity at this time. However we do know systematically how poorly we are dealing with the realities that we face. That our criminal justice system not only exacerbates illnesses, it creates mental illness in both the inmates and the correctional service providers. What hadn’t happened yet when this book was published is a pandemic. Today anyone who cares to look, can see that millions of people are taking to the streets and doing together exactly what individuals do in order to be considered bi-polar. The DSM might be adjusted to rename bipolar disorder to simply “woke” and our government can simply hand out more money and pills, as our government is known to do. What would be better is if we start building infrastructure and planning for a more equitable way for society to exist without gamification in some system of illness that eliminates us like a satanic game of musical chairs. The children are our future and they deserve better.

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Eye-opening

I am really interested in criminal justice as a concerned citizen who works with youths. I have always understood that there is a correlation between mental health and our imprisoned population, but I was not really sure of the actual relationship between mental health care and criminal justice; this book did a great job of explaining how that relationship looks from region to region and the complexity of the issue of this relationship. I wouldn't say that I "enjoyed" this book because of the heaviness of it's content, but I feel more connected and concerned to these issues.

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Good book

Interesting book, would not say it's ground breaking, but makes some good points. Only issue I've had, is that it's read to academically. Although it is understanding for the type of the book this is, sometimes it was difficult for my mind not to wander.

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