What Is The Role Of Jails In Treating The Mentally Ill? (the refinement of white supremacy)

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NPR

The county's Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles is a hulking, massive concrete structure. It is also part of the largest municipal jail system in the United States.

On a recent day, four men enter handcuffed with a police escort. The sheriff's deputies assign them cells, and for the duration of their sentences, this is home. The men wear bright blue pants and neon yellow shirts to set them apart from other inmates.

"Here within Twin Towers, we house approximately 3,900 inmates. A majority of those inmates are deemed mentally ill," says Lt. Joseph Badali, a supervisor with the Sheriff's Department.

The United States incarcerates hundreds of thousands of inmates suffering from mental illness, and jails and prisons are struggling to provide for inmates with severe mental health needs.

Los Angeles County is even exploring building a new jail specifically to house and provide treatment for mentally ill inmates. The proposal is estimated to cost more than $1 billion.

Prison Or Hospital?

L.A. County is not unique. In fact, it is far from it. Experts say good numbers are hard to come by, but one estimate calculates there are about 2.1 million annual bookings of persons with serious mental illnesses into jails. That number swells when you count state and federal prisons.

At one time, huge state hospitals housed the mentally ill. When they closed in the 1970s, community-based care was supposed to step in. Instead, with fewer options, the mentally ill were released to the streets, where they often got into trouble. Jails have to take mentally ill offenders in, but they can't force medication.