People with mental health conditions—including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and severe depression—are jailed more than 2 million times each year, often for misdemeanor crimes. Three-quarters of these individuals have co-occurring substance use disorders. The Washington Post noted in 2018 that 1 in 4 people shot by police the prior year suffered from mental distress, according to a report by the Treatment Advocacy Center.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported that ethnic minority groups are less likely than White people to have access to mental health services, more likely to use emergency rooms over community mental health services, and more likely to receive lower-quality care.
Before the outbreak of COVID-19, many communities struggled to sufficiently address individuals in crisis with mental health conditions. And amid a pandemic, jails and hospitals will likely have even more difficulty responding to people dealing with a mental health crisis—even though the demand for such services may become more acute.
The Pew Charitable Trusts, in partnership with philanthropic and nonprofit organizations from the health and justice sectors, has launched a national effort to encourage communities to offer a continuum of appropriate services and not just decrease the number of people in jails with a mental health concern. Our shared goal is to ensure that police, jails, and emergency rooms are not the default response to people with mental health needs.
The project aims to address these challenges by: