Mysteries of Mental Illness

The Mass Incarceration of the Mentally Ill

Clip | 2m 55s  | Video has closed captioning.

As asylums were deemed inhumane and closed down, the social commitment to community care disappeared, and monies were allocated elsewhere. So began the mass incarceration of the mentally ill as, with nowhere to go, they wound up homeless, or in nursing homes or jails. The irony is that they have not been deinstitutionalized, and their treatment resembles the punitive systems of the past.