Perspective: Mental illness crisis in jails demands new approach [CenterForHealthJournalism.org]
Dorothea Dix was a trailblazer who railed against the inhumane treatment of people with mental illnesses. Shocked by the sight of people with illnesses shackled in jails, she advocated for compassion, not punishment, and helped establish the model for the mental hospitals we have today. That was about 200 years ago. How is it, then, that we’re still applying a 19th-century approach to a problem in the 21st century? Today, we know more and we can do more. People with mental illnesses have...