Jails Have Become the Poor Person's Mental Hospital: The Intersection Between Drug Use and Mental Illness

Abstract

Most countries have laws criminalizing drug use and the United States is no exception. Because of the social costs of drug abuse, legislation aimed at deterring drug use through criminal sanctions may be appropriate on public health grounds. However, mere criminalization of drug use, when combined with the closure of mental health institutions has led to the imprisonment of many whose drug use is linked to mental illness. Understanding the cooccurrence of mental illness and drug use is necessary to understand how many of this country's mentally ill are funneled into the criminal justice system initially, and to provide the mental health services and drug treatment necessary to end recidivism. [From Introduction]