19.04.2014 - 06:51 [ Truthout ]

Prisons Are the New Gulags for the Mentally Ill

More than ten times the number of mentally ill people are in prisons across the United States then are under treatment in mental health facilities. As of 2012, according to a new report, there were an estimated 356,000 prisoners with severe mental illness – including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other acute forms of brain disease — in prisons and jails, while state psychiatric hospitals contained approximately 35,000 patients with severe mental illness.