Alternatives to incarceration of the mentally ill

Stephen Eide writes in City Journal,

...Americans now languish behind bars not because they’re criminals but because they’re sick. Though they make up only 4 percent to 5 percent of the adult population, the seriously mentally ill account for 20 percent of jail inmates. Political partisans on both sides of the spectrum routinely cite the high incidence of serious mental illness among the incarcerated as evidence of the need for a complete overhaul of the mental-health-care system, but that ambitious project will likely take generations. Diversion programs, or “alternatives to incarceration,” at least prevent some sick offenders’ conditions from worsening.

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