In 2005, more than half of prison and jail inmates had a mental health issue.

Mentally ill prison inmates serve on average 15 months longer sentences than other inmates.

Approximately 80 percent of mentally ill inmates have prior convictions.

Prison officials say that mentally ill adults are more likely to receive better care within the prison system rather than outside

httpv://youtu.be/Twpoq3ZYmt8

Today the mental health care system has been largely removed from the public sector and become mostly privatized care. With this system, individuals who come from families without money or have developed illness later in life often cannot afford a bed in a private mental health facility. The few public mental health hospitals rarely have open beds and when they do, they are usually given away based on referrals from hospitals and shelters.

Without access to proper mental health care and thus treatment and medication mentally ill individuals are left to fend for themselves. According to the Bureau of Justice, many become homeless and may become addicted to drugs.

Prison Bars. (Image found in Google Search)

Inevitably, many untreated, mentally ill individuals end up in the United States prison system.

The prison system was not designed to be a rehabilitative center for mentally ill adults and is very much ill equipped to deal with the influx of mentally ill prisoners. This is coupled with the late problem of serious prison and jail overcrowding due to more stringent sentencing laws.

This hypertext seeks to educate the public on a subsection of our population that is all too often overlooked. A critic may argue that a criminal is a criminal and they do not deserve access to the same health care as people who have not committed a crime. I argue that prisoners are among the most marginalized populations in the United States and they have basic human rights like the rest of us. A criminal history is irrelevant when it comes to basic needs such as mental health care. If anything, the “criminally insane” should have priority access to mental health care if only to prevent harm to themselves and others.

To best understand the intricacies of this issue, I will explain the current situation in both mental health care and the United States prison system and then explain how mental health care has developed in the prison system by using California’s San Quentin Prison as an example. Then I will use policy and social justice recommendations as a call to action.

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