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Mental health problems dominate Fayette County prison population

By Patty Yauger pyauger@heraldstandard.Com 1 min read
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The following article the first in a two-part series on mental health issues in the criminal justice system.

Correctional institutions across the country have become the “new asylums,” according to a recent joint report by the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) and National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA).

“The number of individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails now exceeds the number in state psychiatric hospitals tenfold,” according to the April report.

The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails report examined the problems facing correctional institutions that in many cases are called upon to treat mentally ill inmates who have been charged with a crime.

While their charges would not reveal mental illness was at the root of their incarceration, more than half of the number of inmates now in the Fayette County Prison have some troubling psychological disease that may have contributed to them carrying out the crime, according to Lisa Ferris, Fayette County Behavioral Health Administration (FCBHA) executive director.

Follow link for full series: http://goo.gl/NUonjy

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