Although he exhibited psychotic features, he was placed in an isolation cell without receiving a proper medical or mental health assessment. These stories, reported recently in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, are just two examples of the dangerous conditions that face adult and juvenile mental health consumers in our nation's jails and prisons. NMHA recognizes that prisons have become warehouses that offer minimal mental health services and exacerbate inmates' mental health disorders. In response, NMHA is developing a mental health approach to justice system reform. Rates of both mental health and substance abuse disorders are significantly higher among criminal justice populations than in the general population.
Many prisoners are homeless and charged with minor crimes that result from their illnesses.
Not only is it inhumane to allow adults and youth with mental health disorders to suffer, it impedes rehabilitation efforts. Upon release, individuals who have received inadequate treatment, and who have been isolated, neglected or abused, face homelessness, relapse to substance abuse, criminal recidivism, and continued mental illness. Communities will face related economic and social burdens. NMHA has been at the forefront of efforts this past year to reform the juvenile justice system, and is examining ways to address the dangerous lack of mental health services for adult inmates. At the same time, a number of MHAs are building bridges between law enforcement, corrections and mental health in their communities.