Jails as a Repository for Former Mental Patients

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Abstract
This paper analyses and explores one aspect of the relationship between the mental health system and the criminal justice system. Specifically, it deals with that portion of a jail population which, at one time or another, had been in the care of psychiatric hospitals. The data were collected from 339 inmates serving time in three New Jersey institutions (urban, suburban and rural). The findings suggest that the deinstitutionalization movement, marked by stringent requirements for hospitalization in mental hospitals, and less onerous criteria for fitness to be discharged, has created a socially marginal class of people who are increasingly becoming a burden on our lock-ups and jails.