Criminalizing Mental Illness

October 20, 2010October 20, 2010 Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

Yesterday, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) issued a compilation of staggering statistics on the criminalization of people with mental illness in the United States. As NAMI points out, “Over the past 20 years, state spending on correctional systems has increased 350 percent from $10 billion to $45 billion,” while the same states have cut […]

Suicide and Solitary Confinement in New York State Prisons

October 18, 2010February 19, 2016 Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

An important new Special Report in the Poughkeepsie Journal documents the increase in suicides in New York State prisons–and its relationship to solitary confinement. The reporter, Mary Beth Pfeiffer, has a long history of documenting the plight of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system. For this latest report, she filed FOIA requests and […]

Solitary Watch

By Nicole Capozziello | October 7, 2021

prisoners with mental illness

Criminalizing Mental Illness

Suicide and Solitary Confinement in New York State Prisons