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Crazy By Pete Earley ( Putnam Adult )
Release Date: 2006-04-20
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List Price: $25.95
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Product Description
Pete Earley had no idea. He'd been a journalist for over thirty years, and the author of several award-winning-even bestselling-nonfiction books about crime and punishment and society. Yet he'd always been on the outside looking in. He had no idea what it was like to be on the inside looking out until his son, Mike, was declared mentally ill, and Earley was thrown headlong into the maze of contradictions, disparities, and catch-22s that is America's mental health system.
The more Earley dug, the more he uncovered the bigger picture: Our nation's prisons have become our new mental hospitals. Crazy tells two stories. The first is his son's. The second describes what Earley learned during a yearlong investigation inside the Miami-Dade County jail, where he was given complete, unrestricted access. There, and in the surrounding community, he shadowed inmates and patients; interviewed correctional officers, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, mental-health professionals, and the police; talked with parents, siblings, and spouses; consulted historians, civil rights lawyers, and legislators.
The result is both a remarkable piece of investigative journalism, and a wake-up call-a portrait that could serve as a snapshot of any community in America
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 "Crazy" by Pete Earley
This is an eye opening account of one mans journey through the US Mental Health System. A must read for anyone who is touched by mental illness. My son suffers from Bi-Polar disorder and going through a similar situation as Mr. Earley's son. I am now an active NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) member and will fight for the rights and protections of all of those who live with mental illness.
Well done Mr. Earley......brilliant book
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Excellent book-covers the issues of mentally ill persons and the criminal justice system
The author is an investigative journalist who does an outstanding job of describing not only his own struggles with a mentally ill adult son but also the issues and history regarding the serious problem of mentally ill persons involved in our criminal justice system.
I am currently teaching a university course on Mentally Impaired Offenders. I have made this book a required text for the course.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in mental illness and criminal justice.
Mary White
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CRAZY
I have read and purchased over a dozen books to give to people in the community, justice system, mental health, law enforcement, etc. It gives a clear picture of the difficulties loved ones face in getting their mentally ill relative help. Also shows how our criminal justice system has failed to do the right thing and continues to criminalize the mentally ill.
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CRAZY IN AMERICA
This book should be a must read by everyone. It gives frightening details about the plight of the mentally ill. Who would believe that being mentally ill could land you in prison or worse, result in you're being killed by the very people who are entrusted with protecting you? The author's poignant account of his own son's incarceration and legal battles more than alarmed this reader. This is a very important work for our times. Read it.
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Sad and Shocking!!!! ( readerjb )
What an absolutely chilling expose of the mental health treatment system in our affluent country. Or should I say "non-treatment system"? Shameful. Tragically, hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people are out on the streets, not receiving treatment thanks to deinstitutionalization. And the ACLU can take much of the "credit" for this.
Earley's pain comes through in his writing, but he has also managed to distance himself enough to present a well-researched and thoughtful book which educates its readers.
Not only are many of those who are chronically mentally ill in denial as to their disease, so too are our society and the healthcare system in denial.
As another reviewer said, the REAL crime was when we stopped helping the mentally ill, under the guise of protecting their civil rights by turning them out of mental hospitals. Not that those "warehouses" are the answer, but neither is prison or living in a gutter.
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