Perhaps the largest group of mentally ill inmates in the U.S. resides in Los Angeles in one of the world's largest jail complexes.
Over the past seven years, the jail's population has spiked almost 50 percent — with nearly every inmate having both mental illness and substance abuse problems — and officials suspect the rise is due to methamphetamine use.
Sheriff's officials say they've started training deputies specifically in dealing with mental illness and focusing on treatment instead of punishment.
"No one ever expected jails and prisons to be mental health institutions," said Kelly Harrington, the assistant sheriff in Los Angeles who oversees the county jail system. "The deputies, although they don't have specific psychiatric- or psychology-type degrees, we give them as much training as we possibly can in the short period of time we have them."
Over the past year, the sheriff's department has rolled out new training programs that focus on de-escalating potentially violent situations and teach deputies to handle mentally ill inmates, Harrington said. They also have adopted new techniques and programs that bring the inmates out of their cells for recreational programs and therapy.
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