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GA: Jail and Prison Cells ncrease as beds in psychiatric hospitals decline

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

"The chief justice's task force noted that in the past 20 years, Georgia jails have added 23,000 beds and prisons have added 35,000, while the number of psychiatric hospital beds has declined." Atlanta Journal Constitution Mentally ill strain state jails with $70M services By ANDY MILLER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 03/26/08 Fifteen percent of the inmates in Georgia's county jails have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness and receive medication for that condition, according to a task force created by Georgia's Supreme Court chief justice. In addition, 15.5 percent of those in state prisons have similar diagnoses. The disproportionate number of people with mental illness in the state's jails and prisons is the result of a lack of community mental health services, the task force said...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on March 27, 2008 (boomark / email).