Can Pennsylvania find a way out for thousands of mentally ill inmates languishing in county jails?
June 2, 2017April 4, 2017 | By Samantha Melamed
Bruce Herdman, chief of medical operations for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, sometimes describes the county jails this way: “This is the largest psychiatric hospital in the state of Pennsylvania.”
Forty percent of Philadelphia inmates are on psychotropic medications; 17 percent have what’s considered a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. At the state level, 29 percent of inmates have a mental illness. People with mental illness also stay longer Read More