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If the number of jail and state prison inmates with a serious mental illness were added together, they total approximately 356,000 inmates. Since there are only approximately 35,000 individuals with serious mental illness remaining in state mental hospitals, there are now 10 times more individuals with serious mental illness in jails and state prisons than there are in state mental hospitals.
Torrey, EF, Zdanowicz, MT, Kennard, AD et al. The treatment of persons with mental illness in prisons and jails: a state survey. Treatment Advocacy Center and National Sheriff’s Association, April 8, 2014.
The nation’s jails and prisons have replaced hospitals as the primary facility for mentally ill individuals.
There are more seriously mentally ill individuals in the Los Angeles County Jail, Chicago’s Cook County Jail, or New York’s Riker’s Island Jail than in any psychiatric hospital in the United States. In fact, in every county in the US that has both a county jail and a county psychiatric facility, the jail has more seriously mentally ill individuals. A 2004–2005 survey reported that there were “more than three times more seriously mentally ill persons in jails and prisons than in hospitals.”
Torrey EF, Kennard AD, Eslinger D et al. More Mentally Ill Persons Are in Jails and Prisons than Hospitals: A Survey of the States (Arlington, Va.: Treatment Advocacy Center, 2010).
The average stay for mentally ill inmates in jail is longer than for non–mentally ill inmates. In Florida’s Orange County Jail, the average stay for all inmates is 26 days; for mentally ill inmates, it is 51 days. In New York’s Riker’s Island Jail, the average stay for all inmates is 42 days; for mentally ill inmates, it is 215 days. The main reason mentally ill inmates stay longer is that many find it difficult to understand and follow jail and prison rules. In one study, jail inmates were twice as likely (19 percent versus 9 percent) to be charged with facility rule violations.
In another study in the Washington State prisons, mentally ill inmates accounted for 41 percent of infractions even though they constituted only 19 percent of the prison population. Another reason mentally ill inmates stay longer is that they are often held for months awaiting the availability of a bed in a psychiatric hospital.
Jails and mental illness, Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project,
http://consensusproject.org/infocenter/factsheets/fafct_jails, last accessed April 3, 2006.
Turner C, Ethical issues in criminal justice administration, American Jails, January/February 2007.
Butterfield F. Study finds hundreds of thousands of inmates mentally ill, New York Times, October 22, 2003.“
https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter...al illness are in jails and prisons final.pdf