We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
THIS IS CRAZY –
A Government Accountability Office report to Congress issued last week found that about two-thirds of BOP inmates with a serious mental were locked up for drug crimes (23%), sex offenses (18%), weapons charges (17%), or robbery (8%). Seriously mentally ill people are about twice as likely to be incarcerated for sex offenses, robbery, or homicide/aggravated assault as people without serious mental illness, and were incarcerated for drug and immigration offenses at about half or less the rate of inmates without serious mental illness.
System-wide, for fiscal year 2016, BOP spent about $72 million on psychology services, $5.6 million on psychotropic drugs and $4.1 million on mental health care in residential reentry centers.
GAO, Information on Inmates with Serious Mental Illness and Strategies to Reduce Recidivism (Feb. 14, 2018)
– Thomas L. Root
