A new study reveals that prisons in America house ten times as many mentally ill as the state-run psychiatric wards that could actually treat them.
By Abby Haglage
The Daily Beast
Originally published April 10, 2014
Here is an excerpt:
While TAC’s study—titled The Treatment of Persons With Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails—isn’t the first of its kind, it’s notable for two reasons: it’s the first to analyze the data by state, and it’s the most recent illustration that the problem is growing more acute. One of the worst offenders is New York, where the law mandates mentally ill inmates be sent to psychiatric hospitals (which—given the lack of available beds—is mostly useless). A 2011 study estimated that of the 12,200 inmates at Riker’s Island, ⅓ of the men and ⅔ of the women are mentally ill.
The entire article is here.
