Contextualizing and Managing Multiple Stigmas Related to Mental Illness and Criminal Justice System Involvement

• In Event: 1103 - Social Justice Approaches to Mental Health: Addressing Marginalization, Exclusion, and Racism

Abstract

Substantial literature explores stigma related to mental illness and mental health service use, while separate research addresses stigma related criminal behavior and criminal justice system involvement. However, a disproportionate number of individuals with mental illness have exposure to the criminal justice system in this nation – thus experiencing dual stigmas. Forensic peer support workers, whose employment requires disclosure of these two concealable stigmatized identities, provide a new perspective on the experience and management of multiple stigmas. This paper draws on 37 qualitative interviews with peer workers to explore the diffuse understandings, experience, and management of multiple stigmas in their lives and those of their peer clients. Data show that individuals discuss multiple stigmas in the abstract differently than when they are providing narratives of lived experience. In the abstract, participants utilize simplified additive or dominant models of multiple stigmas. Conversely, discussion of lived experience of multiple stigmas highlights the crucial importance of context and environment, indicating that multiple stigmas are best understood through a nuanced intersectional perspective. Stigmas are contextual, dependent on the specific locations of individuals experiencing and perpetrating stigma, and operate within a broad, ecological framework. Data indicate three main contexts: the sociopolitical context, the regional context, and within social communities. When describing experiences with stigma related to criminal justice system involvement, participants emphasize the importance of sociopolitical context, including systems, structures, and policy. Conversely, mental illness related stigma is presented as most salient within social communities, especially familial contexts. Furthermore, I find the salience of stigmas change, and are frequently managed, as individuals move across contexts. This has significant implications for community integration and stigma power. Anti-stigma service development and provision must be mindful of micro and macro contexts to avoid reproducing social exclusions.

Authors

• Wallis Adams, Boston University

• Alisa K. Lincoln, Northeastern University

• Ineke Haen Marshall, Northeastern University

• Phil Brown, Northeastern University

• Jeff Draine, Temple University