Comparison of "The New Asylums" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

In "The New Asylums" documentary, the portrayal of mental illness is a lot different than in the book "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" but the opinions on the treatment of patients are the same. As seen in the documentary, you can tell that there is a major flaw in the treatment of mentally ill patients today. Over the years institutions have closed down in the United Stated forcing mentally ill patients to be admitted to jails --without these institutions, patients ended up committing crimes and going to prisons--; in the 2005 American's jails, as stated in 'The New Asylums' documentary, 16% of the prisoners were considered mentally ill. Psychiatric patients are not suited for jail environment and only receive inadequate care in these negative environments. Being forced to follow strict jail protocol only worsens the health of mentally ill patient.  Major flaws like these are strongly represented in the documentary. Mistreatment of patients is also represented in the book. The author personifies the mistreatment of patients through the eyes of the character Chief Bromden; as narrated in the first 30 pages, patients were forced to go through electric shock therapy bringing about negative effects: side effects consisting of deteriorating mental health, constant seizures, and the change in personalities.

Also, both in the book and the documentary, the patients showed resentment towards their institutionalization, and these patients were constantly being disregarded in their treatment. In both depictions, the workers and patients all have to follow the same motto: follow the rules, you'll be fine, but if you don't, severe actions will be taken. In the documentary, whenever prisoners would react in ways appropriate to their disease but not according to the jail rules, jail officers would use force to isolate the insane prisoner worsening the prisoner's health. In "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" ward, even though patients were given specific treatment for their diseases, whenever a patient asked questions or tried to do things outside of the Big Nurse's guidelines, the Nurse would either take severe action such as sending them to the disturbed ward or punishing them in her own ways. In both cases, the patients only spoke negatively of their experiences seen in the documentary through interviews of patients and in the book, through Chief's narration.