To get help, people with mental illness go to jail
July 21st, 2008According to an estimate by the Houston Chronicle, the jail serving Texas’ most populous county spends $87 million annually to incarcerate and treat inmates with mental illnesses. Many mentally ill homeless people return repeatedly to the Harris County Jail, committing crimes and getting rearrested in part because they cannot get care or supervision when they are released, experts say.
“The jails have become the psychiatric hospitals of the United States,” said Clarissa Stephens, an assistant director of the county’s budget and management services office who has been studying the jail’s mental health costs.
… “What happens here happens in many communities. We are criminalizing mental illness,” said Betsy Schwartz, president of Mental Health of America of Greater Houston, a nonprofit that promotes effective treatment for the mentally ill.
This entry was posted
on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 2:54 pm and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, criminal justice, mental health.
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