Serious Mental Illness Prevalence in Jails and Prisons

Research Summary

Criminal Justice

view of jail cell bars, symbolizing the impact of the criminal legal system on individuals with severer mental illness, underlining the necessity for support and guidance when loved ones face arrest or incarceration

Serious mental illness has become so prevalent in the US corrections system that jails and prisons are now commonly called “the new asylums.” In point of fact, the Los Angeles County Jail, Chicago’s Cook County Jail, or the New York’s Riker’s Island Jail Complex each hold more mentally ill inmates than any remaining psychiatric hospital in the United States. Overall, approximately 20% of inmates in jails and 15% of inmates in state prisons are now estimated to have a serious mental illness. Based on the total inmate population, this means approximately 383,000 individuals with severe psychiatric disease were behind bars in the United States in 2014 or nearly 10 times the number of patients remaining in the nation’s state hospitals.

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