Perhaps because it’s a state issue, people don’t realize this change has happened slowly but systematically over the past two decades. It’s seemingly accelerated in recent years, as state funding for public mental health treatment has dried up.
But there’s ultimately a price to pay for this not caring. And it’s a much higher cost than many of us are aware of. Every major prison system in the US is currently overwhelmed by the amount of people who have a mental illness who take up space in their prisons. Few receive any kind of regular, standard-of-care treatment. The numbers are, in a word, overwhelming.
[For more of this story, written by John M. Grohol, go to http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/07/26/who-cares-people-with-mental-illness-overwhelm-us-justice-system/]
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