Mental health
Policy and practice of mental health
- Serious psychological distress is highest among people under correctional control, especially people in jail (Created: 2026)
- Psychiatric facilities confine 25,000 people every day for criminal legal system involvement (Created: 2026)
- PTSD rates are much higher among recently incarcerated white and Hispanic people (Created: 2025)
- Mental health conditions are more prevalent among recently incarcerated people (Created: 2025)
- Neurodivergent youth are overrepresented in confinement (Created: 2025)
- Neurodivergent youth of color are particularly vulnerable to staff assault while incarcerated (Created: 2025)
- All types of mental health conditions are increasingly common behind bars (Created: 2024)
- Homelessness, mental illness, substance use disorders, and criminalization are deeply connected problems that housing can help with (Created: 2023)
- Many people under community supervision with mental health or substance use disorders can't access treatment (Created: 2023)
- People on probation and parole report higher rates of mental health and substance use disorders (Created: 2023)
- Incarcerated people suffer disproportionately with serious mental illnesses compared to the overall U.S. population (Created: 2022)
- Women in state prisons report being diagnosed with mental health problems at much higher rates than men (Created: 2022)
- In state prisons, women of all races and ethnicities are more likely than men to have any mental health diagnosis (Created: 2022)
- Over half of people in state prisons report mental health problems, but only 1 in 4 has received professional help in prison (Created: 2022)
- Jail suicide rates: Out of step with the nation (and U.S. prisons) (Created: 2022)
- People with incarcerated family members are less likely to report good physical and mental health than those with no family history of incarceration (Created: 2021)
- Suicide rates have always been higher inside prisons, and the gap is widening (Created: 2021)
- Rates of mental illness and substance use disorders are much higher among "frequent utilizers" of jails (Created: 2019)
- People with multiple arrests have serious health needs (Created: 2019)
- People in jail are five times more likely than the general population to have a serious mental illness (Created: 2019)
- Incarcerated women more likely than men to have history of mental health problems (Created: 2017)
- Women much more likely than men to experience "serious psychological distress" while incarcerated (Created: 2017)
- Pennsylvania's Institutional Populations 1982-2003 (Created: 2003)
