Mentally ill prisoners face mistreatment and neglect in many U.S. prisons. This according to a Human Rights Watch report released last month. One in six U.S. prisoners is mentally ill. Many of them suffer from serious illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. There are three times as many men and women with mental illness in U.S. prisons as in mental health hospitals. The rate of mental illness in the prison population is three times higher than in the general population.

According to the report, Ill-Equipped: U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illnes, prisons are dangerous and damaging places for mentally ill people. Other prisoners victimize and exploit them. Prison staff often punish mentally ill offenders for symptoms of their illness – such as being noisy or refusing orders, or even self-mutilation and attempted suicide. Mentally ill prisoners are more likely than others to end up housed in especially harsh conditions, such as isolation, that can push them over the edge into acute psychosis. Woefully deficient mental health services in many prisons leave prisoners undertreated – or not treated at all. Across the country, prisoners cannot get appropriate care because of a shortage of qualified staff, lack of facilities, and prison rules that interfere with treatment.

According to Human Rights Watch, the high rate of incarceration of the mentally ill is a consequence of underfunded, disorganized, and fragmented community mental health services. State and local governments have shut down mental health hospitals across the United States, but failed to provide adequate alternatives. Many people with mental illness – particularly those who are poor, homeless, or struggling with substance abuse problems – cannot get mental health treatment. If they commit a crime, even low-level nonviolent offenses, punitive sentencing laws mandate imprisonment. The Human Rights Watch report is based on more than two years of research and hundreds of interviews with prisoners, corrections fficials, mental health experts and attorneys.

Source: Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/prisons