Do the Mentally Ill in Texas Jails Get Proper Care?-9
Has Mental Illness Become a Crime in the U.S.?
According to a 2022 article about the impact of incarceration on mental health in the U.S.A., adults were incarcerated at a rate of 161 per 100,000 in 1973. That rate had quintupled by 2007 with a rate of 767 per 100,000. In 2012, the number of people held in jails and prisons, at 2.23 million, was nearly 7 times the number in 1972. The manner in which America treats the mentally ill has much to do with the increases in incarceration.
- Mentally ill individuals in the U.S. are 10 times more likely to land in a jail cell than they are to be admitted to a hospital.
- In U.S. jails, upwards of 70% of the detainees have at least one diagnosed substance use disorder, mental illness, or both. Up to one-third of the detainees are suffering from a serious mental illness.
- Statistics show that the crisis continues to worsen. At a New York jail that can house up to 15,000 detainees, 30% of the jail population had a mental illness in 2010, and that number increased to 40% by 2017.
- This issue is most acute for incarcerated women. A 2017 study found that 20% of women in jail suffered “serious psychological distress” in the month prior to the survey compared to only 14% of the jailed men.
Learn more in the next segment. Also see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8 of this series.
Helping detainees in Texas jails is one of this website’s purposes. There is no intention of insinuating that any person or entity has been involved in unlawful activity.
–Guest Contributor
smchugh
smchugh