Mental Illness Forcing Changes In America's Jails

Shale Remien

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) -- A new study released says there are more people with a mental illness behind bars than in psychiatric clinics.

Experts we spoke to say funding and resources all play a part, and all say more needs to be done to help inmates before they reach jail and after they leave.

There's about 75 percent more inmates who have a mental illness compared to about five years ago. There's roughly 477 inmates deemed mentally ill last month at Greenville County's Detention Center.

"And this is not just to Greenville issue this is a nationwide issue." Marie Livingston supervises the jail's mental health department. She works with four counselors and a psychiatrist, trying to help the mentally ill stay on track.

"There is not a lot of resources to send them too, so they end up here. There's a lot of people who just got their treatment. They're just overburdened, on any given day they're going to have 3 to 400 patients or inmates in the jail that are affected by mental illness."

A new study released by Public Citizen and Treatment Advocacy Center says there are more inmates who are mentally ill than those in psychiatric clinics.

"When we think there could just be about 3 to 400 people just in the jail in Greenville County and then multiply that over the state, there are a lot more people with mental illnesses that are in jails, than we even have beds for in the public hospital system in South Carolina."

Ken Dority is the executive director of Nami Greenville and says another concern is what happens to those inmates once they leave jail.

"The mental health department are seeing people every day, but how do they get there? What is their transportation? A lot of issues that break the system down. When family see the person get out of jail, they are struggling to get out of this maze."

Livingston works with these inmates in a group setting and one on one to combat mental illness and substance abuse. "As a community I think we need to offer help, offer change and resources for that change instead of just saying people throw away, or there's nothing we can do to help. In the long run it hopefully helps our community reduce the crime rate safer, make our streets safer, make our community better."

And Greenville isn't the only jail changing it's ways, 54 percent of jails nationwide have changed their staffing and structure.

Livingston says hearing how her treatment has made a long term impact on patients lives, makes it all worth it.

"I think it's really rewarding and just the calls and letters from people saying 'hey I just want to let you know I'm doing good and my family is back together',I keep all of those letters that I've gotten and that's what just keeps me going."

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