Inmates with Mental Illness

Here is a link to a report on a case in California regarding prison inmates with mental illness. I have written two articles on this issue previouly. If you haven't read them, check them out (below) and then take a look at this article:
http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/detail.php?id=573

Until we fully fund mental health care in the community and stop using our prisons as warehouses for people with mental illness, this will only get worse. If the goal is fiscal efficiency, highest best use of funds, etc., then we must fix this problem! It is expensive to keep anyone in prison. The cost of incarcerating people with mental illness is astronomical. If we fix this problem at the roots - with adequate funding for community mental health - we will save billions of taxpayer dollars.

Prison now, instead of treatment

Read this article:
http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/52074617.html

This is yet another of millions of examples of people with mental illness going untreated and ending up in prison. Our Mental Health "system" is failing miserably. Had this woman gotten treatment, these children would not have had to go through what will certainly be the most horrible experience of their lives.