In a nearly 3,700-word story on the front of its New York section, the New York Times (4/12, MB1, Winerip, Schwirtz) reports on the issue of prison inmates who suffer from mental illness, noting some “are more likely than other inmates to be the victims as well as the perpetrators of violence.” Using the story of Rikers Island inmate Michael Megginson as an example, the piece shows how the prison system is unequipped to handle complicated psychiatric problems. It reports that “unlike jail, psychiatric hospitals treated his behavior as a symptom of illness,” though “that option has all but disappeared. For the last four decades, the push in the mental health field has been to close these hospitals.”
Related Links:
— “For Mentally Ill Inmates at Rikers Island, a Cycle of Jail and Hospitals,”Michael Winerip, The New York Times, April 10, 2015.