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Cuts to mental health will drive up county jail expenses

The Houston Chronicle editorial board joins the chorus criticizing plans to cut mental health services in a way that would strand mentally ill inmates and associated expenses in local jails. The editorial opens:What's wrong with this picture? The largest administrator of mental health services in Harris County is the county jail. It's a symptom of a national problem: There are now more than three times more seriously mentally ill individuals in jails and prisons in this country than in hospitals. But in Texas, that ratio is almost eight to one. In the Harris County Jail, the third largest in the country, on any given day 20 to 25 percent of the 10,000 or so inmates are receiving psychotropic medications. And jailing these inmates isn't cheap: According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Texas, each costs taxpayers between $30,000 and $50,000 a year, compared with $22,000 for those without mental illness...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on December 29, 2010 (boomark / email).