Across the nation, more and more people who are suffering from a severe mental illness are likely to wind up in prison than in a treatment facility. Here in Michigan, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI, estimates that more than four times the number of people with mental illnesses are in prisons than in hospitals.Pete Earley is a journalist, advocate, and author of 13 books, including “Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness”. He will be speaking in East Lansing this Wednesday at the invitation of the NAMI Lansing chapter.
Earley says American jails and prisons have become asylums for people with severe mental illness, a situation he thinks is continually getting worse.