Prison not right place for mentally ill

An alarming number of Iowans with serious mental illnesses are ending up behind bars after poorly managed mental health conditions led them to criminal behavior.

That's a tragedy for those individuals who, with help and medication, could lead stable and productive lives. It's a tragedy for the victims of their often avoidable crimes.

And it's a burden on an already bursting corrections system that isn't prepared to provide inmates with intensive psychiatric help.

Iowans would all benefit if state leaders would devote or divert more resources to mental health treatment and hospitalization. Investing in community-based services and adequate psychiatric facilities would help prevent criminal activity rooted in mental illness in the first place. It only makes sense - for patients and taxpayers alike.

One of every six inmates in the Iowa prison system is seriously mentally ill, according to a recently released report issued by the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs' Association. Such Iowans are nearly three times as likely to be in jail or prison as a psychiatric hospital.

It's a trend that's been increasing for decades as people fall through the cracks in strained community-based services and psychiatric beds become harder to come by.

Studies have shown that 40 percent of people with serious mental illness have been in jail or prison at least once in their lives.

The study's authors estimate that in the last three decades, the percentage of seriously mentally ill prisoners in this country has tripled.

It is “fact, not hyperbole, that America's jails and prisons have become our new mental hospitals,” they conclude. They liken today's situation to the early 19th century, when mentally ill people were routinely imprisoned. But it doesn't have to be that way. It's a question of priorities.

According to the report, there is a strong correlation between the amount of money a state spends on mental health services and the number of severely mentally ill inmates in jail and prison.

“Any state can solve this problem if it has the political will by using assisted outpatient treatment and mental health courts and by holding mental health officials responsible for outcomes,” the study's authors write.

Prisons and jails aren't designed to offer the kinds of expert care these seriously mentally ill Iowans need - nor should they be.

But they become de facto inpatient facilities when we don't invest enough money to fully support community-based mental health services, and to fund hospital beds for the people who really need them.

Money spent on those critical services can help prevent mentally ill adults from committing crimes in the first place. That reduces costs to society in the long run.

And avoiding the issue doesn't make it go away.