An urgent exposé of
the mental health crisis in our courts, jails, and prisons
America has made
mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago
each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital. As
many as half of all people in America's jails and prisons have a
psychiatric disorder. One in four fatal police shootings involves a
person with such disorders.In this revelatory
book, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice
system to show how and why it has become a warehouse where inmates
are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make
them sicker.
Through intimate
stories of people in the system and those trying to fix it, Roth
reveals the hidden forces behind this crisis and suggests how a
fairer and more humane approach might look. Insane is a galvanizing
wake-up call for criminal justice reformers and anyone concerned
about the plight of our most vulnerable.