It becomes clear that unless government does something to decrease these numbers soon, the problem will always exist (Stahl, 73). Fox Butterfield, a writer for the New York Times, reported that out of 1.8 million Americans that populate United States prisons, 283,000 of them are mentally disturbed. In addition three quarters of them have previously served time before. Fox observed that these inmates developed a particular pattern of going to prison, being released back on the streets, and then eventually returning to prison again (10). This has become a noticeable and clear pattern that officials choose not to address. For an inmate to be released after time served and continue to end up back in prison obviously points out that prison is not helping them. Prisons and jails are designed to punish people who break the law. However in a mentally disabled persons mind, the do not understand the difference between right and wrong. They are being placed in the wrong environment that is hurting themselves and others. .
There are two specific causes of how this problem evolved. In the journal article, "More Mentally Ill People Reported in US Prisons" by Cesar Chelala, Chelala restates the cause of the overpopulated, mentally ill problem. In the 1960's, numerous long stay mental hospitals discharged a huge amount of its patients. A new anti-psychotic drug was created to medicate patients and release them instead of a long-term hospitalization. However, most of the disturbed that were released refused of forgot to take their medication. As a result of this jails and prisons became the only institutions to place them, because eventually they most of them ended up breaking the law one way or another. After these mental hospitals released all these disturbed people their population went from 559,000 in 1955 and dropped to 69,000 in 1995. On the other hand, the number of prison beds has quadrupled in the last 24 years (210) which becomes a little more than a coincidence.
