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Please read the articles below, and let your voices be heard!

Treatment Advocacy Center Study Reveals Severely Mentally Ill Persons More Likely to be in Jails than Hospitals

TAC Logo "More Mentally Ill Persons Are in Jails and Prisons than Hospitals: A Survey of the States," a new report released today by the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs' Association, reveals that Americans with severe mental illnesses are three times more likely to be in jail or prison than in a psychiatric hospital.
"If societies are judged by how they treat their most disabled members, our society will be judged harshly indeed," said study author E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., a research psychiatrist and Treatment Advocacy Center founder. "The present situation, whereby individuals with serious mental illnesses are being put into jails and prisons rather than into hospitals, is a disgrace to American medicine and to common decency and fairness."
Click here to read the full report

To read a great example of grassroots advocacy, please read the article below by Jackie Shannon in the San Angelo Standard Times, NAMI Texas Board of Directors parliamentarian, past NAMI Texas Board member and past NAMI National Board member.
Click here to read the article

Another study, written by the National Association of Counties, Crises Care Services for Counties: Preventing Individuals with Mental Illnesses from Entering Local Corrections Systems, features several counties, including Bexar County. The study found that almost 15% of men and 31% of women recently booked in jail have a serious mental illness. AT present, there are three times more individuals with mental illness in jails and prisons than in hospitals. Many jails are now de facto mental health hospitals, even though community services are more ideal for individuals with mental illness rather than jails or hospitals.
Click here to read the study

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