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	October 24, 2003

FROM PILLAR TO POST: INCARCERATING AND ABANDONING THE MENTALLY ILL Quite a few news sources are covering the recent Human Rights Watch report on the incarceration of the mentally ill. Key data in the report: As many as one in every five of the 2.1 million people in American prisons suffer from one of three acute mental illnesses: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression. Since the 1960s, the population of US mental hospitals has dropped from almost six hundred thousand to eighty thousand; there has been an offsetting increase in the number of severely mentally ill Americans in prisons and on the streets. Close to three quarters of a million mentally ill Americans are admitted each year to prisons or jails. In prison, the mentally ill receive little or no treatment, and a disproportionate amount of punishment and solitary confinement. Mandatory and 'three-strikes' sentencing legislation catches a lopsided proportion of the mentally ill. Put this data together with data on the number of mentally ill on the streets, and you get the sorry picture shown in the above chart. It's a picture of neglect, heartlessness and false economy. Human Rights Watch calls for more money for treatment and therapy of mentally ill prisoners. With the skyrocketing cost of the epidemic of incarceration (quadruple the number of thirty years ago), and a right-wing Attorney-General with an extraordinary taste for blood, don't hold your breath. Whatever happened to the concept of 'not guilty by reason of mental defect'? The right-wing Supreme Court recently upheld a ruling that forces inmates to take medication so that they can be certified sane enough to execute. With 95% of prison suicides committed by the mentally ill, I guess this is what they mean by 'compassionate conservatism.' Reader Caveat: The numbers in the chart above are approximations. Some sources put the proportion of mentally ill in prison or on the streets significantly higher or lower than shown; rough average has been used. There is also no universal agreement on definition or diagnosis of 'severe' mental illness. The scale on the chart has been 'broken' to display the total number of mentally ill while still showing detail of those incarcerated or homeless on one small chart. 8:10:29 AM  trackback []  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dave Pollard. Last update: 19/02/2004; 2:55:04 PM.