Mental Health Concerns continue at the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center

Dec 27, 2016 at 09:21 am by bryan


Mental health concerns continue to plague the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center. Rutherford County Sheriff's Deputy Chief Keith Lowery stated...

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In 2005, the Department of Justice released a report that suggested 64% of inmates in local jails suffer from mental health problems. The same report suggested that 56% of inmates in state prisons and 45% of inmates in federal prisons suffer from mental health problems.

In 1959, nearly 559,000 mentally ill patients were housed in state mental hospitals, but when the government decided to "deinstitutionalize" mentally ill persons that number dropped to 70,000 by 1990. Today, a concrete number has not been released. However, jails and prisons continue to be overcrowded with a large number of inmates needing mental help.

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