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Mentally ill people are overrepresented in United States jail and prison populations relative to the general population. There are three times more seriously mentally ill persons in jails and prisons than in hospitals in the United States. The exact cause of this overrepresentation is disputed by scholars; proposed causes include the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill individuals in the mid-twentieth century; inadequate community mental health treatment resources; and the criminalization of mental illness itself. The majority of prisons in the United States employ a psychiatrist and a psychologist. While much research claims mentally ill offenders have comparable rates of recidivism to non-mentally ill offenders, other research claims that mentally ill offenders have higher rates of recidivism. Mentally ill people experience solitary confinement at disproportionate rates and are more vulnerable to its adverse psychological effects. Twenty-five states have laws addressing the emergency detention of the mentally ill within jails, and the United States Supreme Court has upheld the right of inmates to mental health treatment. ==Prevalence== There is broad scholarly consensus that mentally ill individuals are overrepresented within the United States jail and prison populations.〔Torrey, et al. 2010, p. 1.〕〔Powell, et al. 1997, p. 427.〕〔James & Glaze 2006, p. 1.〕〔Torrey, et al. 1998, iv.〕 In the 2010 study titled “More mentally ill persons are in jails and prisons than hospitals: a survey of the states,” researchers concluded that, based on statistics from sources including the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are currently three times more seriously mentally ill persons in jails and prisons than in hospitals in the United States, with the ratio being nearly ten to one in Arizona and Nevada.〔Torrey, et al. 2010, p. 1.〕 “Serious mental illness” is defined here as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression.〔Torrey, et al. 2010, p. 3.〕 Further, they found that sixteen percent of the jail and prison population in the U. S. has a serious mental illness (compared to 6.4 percent in 1983),〔Torrey, et al. 2010, p. 1.〕 although this statistic does not reflect differences among individual states.〔Torrey, et al. 2010, p. 7.〕 For example, in North Dakota they found that a person with a serious mental illness is equally likely to be in prison or a jail versus hospital, whereas in states such as Arizona, Nevada and Texas, the imbalance is much more severe.〔Torrey, et al. 2010, p. 8.〕 Finally, they noted that a 1991 survey through the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill concluded that jail and/or prison is part of the life experience of forty percent of mentally ill individuals.〔Torrey, et al. 2010, p. 8.〕 A separate research study titled “The Prevalence of Mental Illness among Inmates in a Rural State” noted that national statistics like those previously mentioned primarily pull data from urban jails and prisons.〔Powell, et al. 1997, p. 428.〕 In order to investigate possible differences in rural areas, researchers interviewed a random sample of inmates in both jails and prisons in a rural Northeastern state.〔Powell, et al. 1997, p. 431-432.〕 They found that in this rural setting, there was little evidence of high rates of mental illness within jails, “suggesting the criminalization of mental illness may not be as evident in rural settings as urban areas." However, high rates of serious mental illness were found among the rural prison inmates.〔Powell, et al. 1997, p. 427.〕 A 2005 special report issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics titled used personal interviews of jail and prison inmates to determine either a recent history or symptoms of a mental health problem. In doing so they found that over half of state prisoners, forty-five percent of federal prisoners, and nearly two-thirds of jail inmates had a mental health problem.〔James & Glaze 2006, p. 1.〕 As for the gender, age, and racial demographics of mentally ill offenders, the same Bureau of Justice Statistics report found that female inmates had much higher rates of mental health problems than male inmates (with 73.1% of female inmates exhibiting signs of mental health problems in state prisons vs. 55% of male inmates). White inmates and inmates under twenty-four years of age also had mental health problems at higher rates. In local jails alone, 71.2% of white inmates exhibited symptoms of mental health problems, compared to 63.4% of black inmates, 50.7% of Hispanic inmates, and 69.5% of inmates of other races. Finally, with regards to age, inmates under the age of 24 were the most likely to show signs of a mental health problem, with percentages decreasing in correlation to an increase in an inmate's age group.〔James & Glaze 2006, p. 4.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mentally ill people in United States jails and prisons」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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