North Carolina Jails Hold Six Times More People With Serious Mental Illness Than State Psychiatric Hospitals

OPEN MINDS Weekly News Wire Social Services As North Carolina has reduced the capacity at its state psychiatric hospitals since 2001, the number of inmates with a serious mental illness (SMI) in the state’s prisons and jails has increased so greatly that as of 2009, they held six times as many inmates diagnosed with SMI than the number of the long-term care beds at the state psychiatric hospitals. In the second half of this state fiscal year (July 2010 – June 2011), the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) will close the Dorothea Dix Hospital facility . . .