Jailing of Mentally Ill Has Turned US Prisons into 'Inhumane' Asylums: Study

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Wednesday, April 9, 2014 by Common Dreams
Jailing of Mentally Ill Has Turned US Prisons into 'Inhumane' Asylums: Study

As state psychiatric facilities shut their doors, people with severe mental illnesses are being locked in U.S. prisons and jails, finds report

- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

There are ten times more people with severe mental illnesses in U.S. jails and prisons than in state psychiatric hospitals, and conditions of incarceration—including abuse and denial of care—are causing the health of this vulnerable population to decline even further.

This is according to a damning study, The Treatment of Persons With Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails (PDF), released Wednesday by the Treatment Advocacy Center—a non-profit organization that seeks to eliminate barriers to mental health care.

The report argues that decades of cuts and closures of state psychiatric hospitals have transformed jails and prisons into the modern-day asylums.

According to the study, there are 356,268 people with serious mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, currently locked in U.S. prisons and jails. In 44 states and the District of Columbia, the report states, "a prison or jail in that state holds more individuals with serious mental illness than the largest remaining state psychiatric hospital."

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/04/09-4

[KT2000]

1. this is a national disgrace

mentally ill young men are put in prison and are often kept by bigger men for sex.
This is known among prison staff.
Imagine the terror that person goes through.
It happened to my friend's son - more than once. His schizophrenia caused him to get in trouble with the police and he would be sent to prison - a worse prison each time. She worked constantly to get him out and under proper care but nothing worked.

In the US we send our mentally ill to prisons where they are terrorized and that is the fact.

[Ilsa]

2. And there aren't enough treatment centers for

MI people who need good doctors and medication trials to find the right regimen.

I'm really hating on Ronald Raygun for shutting down funding and centers to help vulnerable people.

[Mnemosyne]

3. I still blame Raygun. Tossing poor souls out on the street when some had been institutionalized for

decades. The trauma must have been so horrible. And now it has evolved into even more dehumanizing treatment.

I understand how it can be good to get people out of institutions, but sometimes homelessness ends up their only choice until thrown into another institution - jail.

Argh!!

[eppur_se_muova]

4. +1. Always, someone should point out that it was Saint Ronnie's fault. nt

[bobthedrummer]

5. A high percentage of the mentally ill are found in the "leadership" of The United States of America.

spelling error corrected on edit