Currently, when a person is arrested and sentenced to time in jail, there are several psychiatric medications that the inmate was prescribed by their doctor before the arrest, that are stripped and taken away from these patients who NEED their medication to stay mentally stable.  It is inhumane to lock up a person who requires psychiatric medication to stay mentally stable and put them in the most stressful and agonizing environment untreated.  Currently, there are psychiatrists inside the jails that take over the inmates' care and are extremely limited in what they can prescribe, rendering in most cases, the inmate improperly treated, causing a health risk to themselves and other inmates.  Examples of types of medications would be benzodiazepines and several anti-psychotics like Seroquel.  This leads to the inmate having to deal with illnesses such as Panic Disorder, PTSD, suicidal thoughts, violent outbursts, and hallucinations.  This cause is extremely important to me because I was once an inmate and I got ripped off of my medication when my personal Doctor saw fit that I NEEDED certain medications to treat my mental health.  The result was the worst six months of my life.  At first, I began having severe panic attacks ALL DAY LONG.  Over and over in my cell all alone.  When it came time to eat, I was shaking so badly that I would continuously drop my tray walking to my seat.  Imagine how weak I appeared to potential predators!  Also, I was unable to sleep for an ENTIRE month!  The ONLY way I finally got to sleep was to have a fellow inmate who was prescribed a non-narcotic sleep aid risk punishment by sticking the pill under his tongue and spitting it out once back in my cell.  There he would give me half a pill in exchange for one of my meals for that day.  After months of this hellish nightmare, I began having non-stop suicidal thoughts.  There was no way I could continue living like this for the remainder of my sentence.  A sentence that I hadn't even received yet.  I hadn't even been found guilty of any crime.  I was simply being held without bail until my trial.  A trial that my lawyer kept delaying for an entire year.  This led to me finally attempting suicide in jail.  I kept ordering Ibuprophen, Tylenol, and Benadryl.  I had hundreds of them and chewed all of them at once and to make sure the job got finished, I took off my jumpsuit and made a noose with it.  While I thought no one was looking, I began tying the leg of the jumpsuit to the top railing on the second tier of the mezzanine.  However, right as I was putting the noose around my neck, a fellow inmate who is now my friend, saw me and ran as fast as he could at me and tackled me to the ground.  Had he not seen me that day, I would not be here to write this petition begging for policy change so that MANY other inmates do not attempt and succeed at suicide while incarcerated.  PLEASE sign this petition so together we can save the lives of thousands of mentally ill inmates who are cruelly untreated with the proper medication they need to cope with incarceration paying for their mistakes to society.  Suicide is only one problem of not being medicated properly.  A lot of untreated inmates will begin to hallucinate and see demons taunting them day in and day out...for as long as they are locked up.  That could be years.  Even decades. This has to STOP!... This must CHANGE!