Arresting the Patient Instead of the Illness - The Jail as Psychiatric Service of Last Resort - A Commentary on the Criminalization of the Mentally Ill

• NCJ Number: 100201
• Journal: Journal of Prison and Jail Health Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring/Summer 1985) Pages: 20-28
• Author(s): C J Meyers
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 9 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Conference Material
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

A legal revolution aimed at protecting the civil rights of the mentally ill has had a paradoxical effect.

Abstract

Today, many mental patients are not socially disruptive enough to reach the threshold required for involuntary admission to a mental hospital, but they surpass the threshold for involuntary admission to a jail. Hence the phrase 'criminalization of the mentally ill,' which has come to have two meanings: (1) Illicit actions that led to civil detention in the past now lead to criminal detention; (2) Because the mentally ill are not civilly detainable unless demonstrably 'dangerous' or 'gravely disabled,' destructive behavior may escalate to a point that would be considered heinous in any era. This address will examine the problem and present one attempt to cope with it. (Author abstract)