LOCKED UP - More Behind Bars Because of Poverty and Mental Illness

"How poverty and mental illness are putting more people behind bars" PBS NewsHour 2/16/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  More Americans than ever before are spending time in jail despite a drop in the crime rate in the past two decades.  That's according to a new report that also found that a disproportionate number of people in jail suffer from mental illness.  Judy Woodruff discusses the findings with Nicholas Turner of the Vera Institute of Justice and Margo Schlanger of the University of Michigan.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  A new report finds that more Americans than ever are spending time in jail.  The Vera Institute of Justice showed that, in the past two decades, despite a drop in the crime rate, the number of people going to jail has increased dramatically.

In addition, those behind bars are staying longer.  Some 62 percent of them have not yet been convicted of a crime, and three-quarters of those jailed now are brought in for nonviolent offenses.  The report also finds that a disproportionate number of those in jail suffer from mental illness.

Joining us are Nicholas Turner.  He’s president and director of the Vera Institute.  And Margo Schlanger of the University of Michigan.

Nick Turner, to you first.

Why are the jails and prisons of the United States so full today?

NICHOLAS TURNER, President and Director, Vera Institute of Justice:  Well, you have to go back, really, almost four decades.  We have, since the early 1970s, been on what some people describe as a binge in this country, a reliance on incarceration and on confinement as the primary strategy to keep people safe.  That’s been the argument.

And so, for the past 40 years, the number of people in jail and in prison in this country has gone up almost 400 percent.  When you look at jails now, there are additional other reasons as to why we have so many people in jail.  In the past few decades, we have increasingly arrested more and more people, not only for felonies or serious charges, but also for misdemeanors.

And we are also seeing more people who are being arrested being put in jail, so there is a general reflex within the criminal justice system still to rely on confinement.