Coloradans with Mental Illnesses Warehoused in Jails & Prisons
 ---Rocky Mountain PBS I-News Network

“Years ago we deinstitutionalized mental health treatment,” says Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle. “People felt it was shameful that we had people in custody or locked up in mental health facilities. Now, instead, we lock them up in jail.”

The burden on jails is growing. A 1992 jail survey found that 11 percent of Colorado inmates had a serious mental illness, according to research by Public Citizen’s Health Research Group and National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. This year, 10 county jails surveyed by I-News reported that, on average in 2013, 18 percent of their inmates were mentally ill.

Sheriffs say that the trend is noticeable from year to year. At the Douglas County jail, for example, the number of mentally ill inmates has grown 10 percent in the past three years, even as the general daily population has dropped 25 percent.

Once they’re in, inmates with behavioral health problems have more trouble getting out. The seven metro Denver counties in 2008 found that mentally ill inmates stayed an average of five times longer than other inmates. In Pueblo, an inmate detained for a misdemeanor stays an average of 28 days; mentally ill inmates jailed for similar offenses stay between 171 and 180 days.

"Jails and prisons have become the warehouses for people who aren’t getting treated elsewhere,” says Attila Denes, a captain at the Douglas County jail. “It’s among the most expensive and least humane” ways to provide care.

 http://inewsnetwork.org/2014/05/23/coloradans-with-mental-illnesses-warehoused-in-jails-prisons/