Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System

Much has been written about the shockingly low level of mental health facilities and services in Texas, especially if you are poor or uninsured or incarcerated. And much has been written about months and years of incarceration that may befall a defendant who cannot make bail. The combination of inadequate services and long-term incarceration is a prescription for disaster.

PBS's "Frontline" (with its local affiliate, KFAE, in Charlotte, NC) took a look at this situation through the lens of one prisoner who cycled between jail and the mental health system, such as it is, for five years while waiting for his trial. Text and audio are here.

Private-Sector Strategies to Address Disparities in Access to Mental Health Resources

Health Affairs just published the second of four articles on private-sector strategies to address disparities in access to health care: "Addressing The Mental Health Equity Crisis: Can The Private Sector Lead?" The author is Wizdom Powell, Ph.D., M.P.H. (recently named one of the 25 Essential Voices on Black Mental Health). 

"Crisis" is not hyperbole. As inequitable as access to health care is in general, access to mental health care is even more problematic. Helping a friend or family member to be seen, evaluated, and into appropriate treatment is the medical equivalent of banging your head against a brick wall over and over again. As Dr. Powell writes, "By any measure, an all-hands-on-deck approach is needed." She continues:

Health disparities, or preventable differences in the burden of chronic disease and health outcomes, are a driving force behind mental health inequities. Our health equity problem is of our own making, created by artificial caste distinctions, persistent racism, and how we structure our economy and investments in health care; the status of health care disparities is determined, largely, in the ways that the private sector either confronts them or looks away. It is also valuable to recognize that the wicked problem of health inequity is not immutable and that our lack of sustained advancement has more to do with internalized myths of complexity than with our societal capacity.

Wicked problems aren’t unsolvable; instead, they offer many paths to a solution. Just as we have created the problems, we can create the solutions as well. This requires the private sector to do what can prove difficult for public sector leaders—invest resources in pursuing a mental health equity moonshot. The private sector is uniquely positioned and resourced to take the lead in marshaling solutions that will deliver the rapidity and scale necessary to address these troubling trends and ultimately advance health equity. 

Read the article and learn about DEIBJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging & Justice) and SDGs (the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals). The article is a quick read and well worth your time.