Jails = The New Mental Hospitals.

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Can you believe this? Seems that the consequence of de-institutionalization 50 years ago is now, they're being sent to jails and prisons in large numbers. According to this New York Times article, more than half of American prisoners are diagnosed with mental illnesses. Are we returning to the 1800s or what? Here's a few interesting articles I've read about this issue.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 4245550546

"America's lockups are its new asylums. After scores of state mental institutions were closed beginning in the 1970s, few alternatives materialized. Many of the afflicted wound up on the streets, where, untreated, they became more vulnerable to joblessness, drug abuse and crime.

The country's three biggest jail systems?Cook County, in Illinois; Los Angeles County; and New York City?are on the front lines. With more than 11,000 prisoners under treatment on any given day, they represent by far the largest mental-health treatment facilities in the country. By comparison, the three largest state-run mental hospitals have a combined 4,000 beds.

Put another way, the number of mentally ill prisoners the three facilities handle daily is equal to 28% of all beds in the nation's 213 state psychiatric hospitals, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute Inc.

"In every city and state I have visited, the jails have become the de facto mental institutions," says Esteban Gonzalez, president of the American Jail Association, an organization for jail employees.

Correctional systems define mental illness differently. Generally, the term is used to describe prisoners who require medication for serious issues ranging from major depressive disorders to schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Also included are inmates with diagnoses that warrant overnight stays in a mental hospital or who demonstrate serious functional impairment.

To get a snapshot of how the U.S. is grappling with such an explosive societal issue, The Wall Street Journal surveyed all 50 states about issues of mental health within their prison populations. Of the 22 states that provided detailed responses, their mental-health patient ratios ranged from one in 10 inmates to one in two. Inmates in all 23 responding states account for 55% of the prisoners in the U.S. under state jurisdiction."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opini ... -jail.html

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/show ... cward.html

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/20/263461940 ... -cant-help

"Clearly, our society had determined that the state-run mental hospitals were abhorrent, that, my God, our society cannot tolerate this, we're much more advanced than that," Dart says. "I just find the irony so thick that that same society finds it OK to put the same people in jails and prisons."

What do you all think? I think it's especially troubling for the increasing numbers of autistic individuals in the country. I wouldn't be surprised if a number of these "mentally ill" are on the spectrum. With 80% unemployment, many of us realistically won't ever be fully independent. What happens after our parents pass on though? Aside from SSI/SSDI I worry that without proper supports, many of us may suffer the same fate one day

Unfortunately, The general public here in the United States have a huge case of the disease called NIMBY (not in my backyard). The general public also suffers from Out of Sight, Out of Mind. As long as the general public doesn't see us loonies on the street, they could care less.

Didn't read the article yet.

My mom and I were talking about this the other month. She was telling me how people used to go to institutions where they were safe and well cared for. She said it was the minority they were abused and some were bad. But then they all got shut down in the 80s by Reagen and now we have all these mentally ill people running around and some are left homeless, some are getting in trouble with the law because they can't get help and neither can their families and some get so overwhelmed by them. It's not surprising how so many of the inmates have a mental illness. The prisons are like the new institutions for them and they have to break the law first to go there.

NIMBYs? I'll say. In my town there's a respite house. It's a weekend getaway for people with mental illness. These people are not remotely violent yet the neighbours still complained so they had to set up a lot of arbitrary rules as though they're violent criminals. I'd be more worried about having untreated mentally ill people in the neighourhood than I would about a place where they get treatment.

Frankly, if you have a mental illness and commit a serious crime (murder,rape, kidnapping, child abuse, etc) you should be thrown into prison not into a mental institution.

The only exceptions would be those who have documented and proven conditions that can be medically declared 'insane' (aka schizophrenia, dementia, etc).

...but, if someone kills or shoots someone else because he was depressed or had anger problems... those belong in prison.

We really do not want to end up like Norway where a man can premeditate a mass murder and execute it and be sentenced to a placid resting home with bars because of his mental issues. A system like that will be abused (just like that nutcase did) and committing serious crimes gets rewarded with years of gov. pampering.

OH MY GOD! That means Arkham asylum has been closed down, and the Joker and Two Face are on the loose! RUN! RUN!

Uhh this issue just infuriates me....another way in which this society is failing.

the US needs to sort the jail system out for all vulnerable criminals,its in a horrible state.

still cannot believe the amount of people with intelectual disability they have charged on the same level as a normal functioning adult and have executed or jailed,they will be extremely vulnerable in that environment nor will they have the mental or emotional capacity to cope.
in this country,people with intelectual disability who have comited criminal acts are put into forensic hospitals instead and are treated and rehabilitated to go back into some sort of community care facility or independant living with support.

in America, people are largely disposable- when one breaks choose from plenty of replacements. we throw away people without even trying to fix them first.

Doesnt the law mitigate the seriousness of a crime if the perpetrator happens to be mentally ill? Furthermore its almost 5am so I didnt read the article but do these mental illnesses include Antisocial personality disorders Depression Anxiety ADHD etc? These illnesses 99.99% of the time do not dimminish ones' culpability

Doesnt the law mitigate the seriousness of a crime if the perpetrator happens to be mentally ill? Furthermore its almost 5am so I didnt read the article but do these mental illnesses include Antisocial personality disorders Depression Anxiety ADHD etc? These illnesses 99.99% of the time do not dimminish ones' culpability