How We Stopped Locking Up Mentally Ill People (And Then Started Again)




The Jefferson Exchange show

Summary: We stopped the "warehousing" of people with mental illness years ago. Or did we? The huge state hospitals with thousands of residents are generally gone, but our jail and prison population has boomed. And there's plenty of evidence that the two trends are related... like the fact that up to half of the people in lockup have psychiatric disorders. Journalist Alisa Roth researched the trends and the people they represent for her book Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness .