The Mentally ill Imprisoned

The American Justice System has many criticisms, but it’s hard to imagine any of them are more glaring than the disproportionate numbers of mentally ill patients locked up in American prisons. During a three year span, states defunded mental health services to the tune of five billion dollars. Some estimates suggest that more than forty percent of people who suffer with severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, received no treatment in the last year. Multitudes of these patients are spending their days in prison, without proper treatment. In many cases, imprisonment can even complicate mental illness. Currently, more than ten million Americans suffer from serious mental illness, and every year, over thirty-four thousand of them commit suicide. The life expectancy of people with serious mental illness is twenty-three years shorter than other Americans, reducing their life expectancy to someone living in Bangladesh. Studies have shown that early intervention can prevent mental illness from getting worse. In a recent USA Today longform report, this startling graphic shows the disparity between available beds in psychiatric wards, prisons, the homeless and the morgue, representing suicide victims. Dr. Ray Keller at the University of Vermont said that they have mentally ill patients practically living in their emergency rooms. With nowhere to turn, many mentally ill wind up in prison after lashing out with acts of aggression, often misunderstood by family or police. Of the ten million Americans with mental illness, a staggering two million go to jail every year. It raises the question, are police officers trained or qualified to handle mentally ill patients? The cost of incarcerating a prisoner in New York is sixty-thousand dollars per year while intensive treatment out of a prison can cost half as much. Of course, treatment doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the patient won’t end up in jail or in a hospital, but critics are at least wondering why so many states are cutting funding to the mentally ill.