On Nov. 5, 2015 I attended a talk given by Doris Fuller titled, “The New Asylums: Mentally Ill and Behind Bars.” This talk was presented through the Clarke Forum as a part of their series on mass incarceration.

I have learned about mass incarceration before, but I have never learned about it through the lens of mental illness. I didn’t even know mental illness was a facet of mass incarceration. As it turns out, we need to be looking at it, because the facts are staggering. The Treatment Advocacy Center, the center Fuller works for says:

• There are an estimated 356,000 people with serious mental illness locked up.
• There are more than three times as many mentally ill people in jail and in prison, than in psychiatric hospitals.
• The average stay in jail for mentally ill patients is much longer compared to all other inmates.

Instead of receiving proper treatment for their mental illness, these individuals are locked up when their symptoms cause them to exact in problematic, and sometimes violent, ways. Fuller talked about her daughter Natalie and her experience with mental illness and the law. She talked about the first experience Natalie had with the police was when she was singing outside of her ex-boyfriend’s house, because she heard voices telling her he wanted her to. The roommates of the housemate got annoyed and called the police. The police took Natalie back to her dorm, and then Natalie returned later in the night to sing again. She was then taken to jail. Natalie would later be involved with the police again.

After hearing that story, it clicked with me that I have been subject to this inadequate system as well. I have struggled with mental illness from the age of 13. When I was 16 years old, I got drunk and was feeling suicidal. I called my therapist and he called the police. As he wasn’t in a situation to make sure I was safe in person, he needed someone else to make sure I was safe. Being picked up by the police was one of the scariest experiences I have ever had. I was not treated with kindness and concern, instead I was admonished for drinking underage and talked down to. Thankfully even though I was picked up, nothing was put on my record, nor was I jailed.

What I needed that night was support and help. The traumatic police ride did nothing to help my suicidal feelings. It made me scared to reach out to people for support, and scared of police. The police were the ones to pick me up, because sometimes there aren’t other solutions to make sure someone is safe. After deinstitutionalizing the mental health system, nothing replaced it. Our mental health system is broken and frequently the responsibilities to manage individuals with mental health, fall to the police. The police are not trained in mental health processes and there is only so much they can do.

So what is the result when people are incarcerated instead of getting support? Consequences include homelessness, more jail time, trouble getting a job with criminal offenses on your record, acting out of violence, and generally an unsatisfying and tumultuous life. The Treatment Advocacy Center reports that 40 to 50 percent of people living with a severe mental illness do not receive treatment. We need to work on creating a better mental health treatment system to prevent the alarming results of the system we currently have.

A contributing factor to our broken system, besides the failure to rebuild it, is the stigma around mental health issues. As Fuller said, if someone breaks their arm, no one tells them to just get over it. Instead, they receive treatment and sympathy. Why is it different when our brain breaks? As a person who can relate to Natalie’s experience, I feel deeply troubled by the statistics on mass incarceration of the mentally ill. I urge you to learn more information about this issue and how you can break the stigma around mental health.