The Country's Largest Mental Health Hospital

August 20, 2015 2:31 PM

The Cook County Jail, the nation's largest single site jail, recognizing that it handles the largest number of mentally ill people of any facility in the country, has been taking steps to help the mental ill in its cells. Last month, Nneka Jones Tapia, a clinical psychologist who previously ran the mental health program at the jail, was appointed as the executive director. Many of these improvements were put in place after a damning 2008 report by the US Department of Justice. Sheriff

Sheriff Thomas Dart has repeatedly stated that many of the people who he takes into his jail are there because of the criminalization of mental illness.

Note: most of the people booked into the Cook County Jail are there on non-violent charges. In fact, people with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators.

posted by Hactar (5 comments total)

I was trying not to editorialize in the FPP, but from the quotes I read and the Cook County Sheriff's homepage Dart seems to be a believer in jail/prison reform and fixing the way the legal system treats mental health and not just reacting to the DOJ report and supervision. I think this is a good start and really hope this does not end up being a flash in the pan.
posted by Hactar at 2:39 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

People with mental illness mostly can't access support. You have to be both highly functioning, and fairly well-off, to access what few resources there are, outside of jail.

And if you're not highly functioning, but you were born into a family with resources and you're smart enough to get by, sometimes? You can't get any help outside of jail. Your family will save you from jail for as long as they can. Which just means that you get no treatment whatsoever until your parents die, or until they are completely used up. Then you go to jail anyways, after decades untreated. People might say it's a pity you didn't go sooner, but frankly the treatment in most jails is pretty dire.

Why oh why can't we do this better? It's STUPID.
posted by elizilla at 7:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

When I began to ask about the human-rights aspect, he scoffed. “Oh please,” he said. “I’ve almost given up trying to talk to people on that level because they don’t care.”

Yeah, this person is operating at full reality.
posted by qinn at 11:49 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]

All you have to do is look at the desperate questions posted fairly regularly on Ask Metafilter to see just how lacking our country's mental health support system is. People with parents, children, roommates, boyfriends, girlfriends... all trying to get their loved ones help and finding not a whole lot out there.

Great article, thanks for posting. I'm always a little wary about trusting Chicago politicians/leaders, but Dart has always seemed like a good egg. I remember during the foreclosure crisis he suspended foreclosure evictions until banks could prove the foreclosure was done fairly and legally.
posted by misskaz at 8:10 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Dart seems like a good egg -- hey, misskaz beat me to my phrase -- but unbelievably, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's office hasn't talked to Dart's office in OVER A YEAR, and my understanding is the CPD brass doesn't talk to the sheriff's brass either ... there's a deep political rift there, and it's NUTS.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:22 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]