USA Today reports that the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice have found that seriously mentally ill people are more likely to end up in jail or prison than in a treatment center. This is true across all states, but in some this was much more likely to happen. Arizona was 10 times more likely to put a mentally ill person in the criminal justice system.
Often, the mentally ill commit a minor infraction that sends them to jail. Some states and cities try to train their officers to de-escalate situations involving emotionally disturbed persons so that they don't end up in jail. In Connecticut, many towns work with local mental health agencies so their police forces can help divert those who would be better served in a treatment to the right facility. But Connecticut is a rarity. According to the same USA Today story, it's mental health spending is one of the highest in the country.
Some localities are making inroads on this issue, though. Hattiesburg, Miss., will soon become the first place in the country with an entire behavioral health court. The town received a federal grant of $228,000 to establish the court for its first two years, and it will be designed after drug courts throughout the country that work to treat addiction rather than jail small-time offenders.
Jailing small-time offenders who are mentally ill is one of the most shameful things an already shameful criminal justice system does. And it was an unnecessary side effect of the de-institutionalization movement of the past few decades, since many on the right saw it as a cost-cutting measure as much as a humanitarian effort. Programs like the one in Hattiesburg are a good start.
-- Monica Potts