The Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill and Growth
نویسنده
چکیده
This paper tests for a relationship between the size of the population institutionalized in state and county mental hospitals and the size of state prison populations. The analysis exploits inter-state differences in the pace of deinstitutionalization to identify this relationship. While mental hospital populations declined nation-wide, decreases in hospitalization rates vary considerably from state to state. To the extent that the deinstitutionalized mentally ill transfer from mental hospitals to prisons, there should be a negative within-state correlations between these populations. Using standard panel data techniques, I probe the robustness of this relationship. I find strong negative effects of hospitalization rates on prison incarceration rates. The estimation results imply that deinstitutionalization between 1971 and 1996 is directly responsible for 48,000 to 148,000 of the inmates in state prison systems in 1996. This accounts for 4.5 to 14 percent of the total prison population for this year and for roughly 28 to 86 percent of prison inmates suffering from mental illness.
منابع مشابه
Assessing the Contribution of the Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill to Growth in the U.S. Incarceration Rate
We assess the degree to which the mentally ill who would have been in mental hospitals in years past have been trans‐institutionalized into prisons and jails. We also assess the contribution of deinstitutionalization to growth in the U.S. prison population. We find no evidence of trans‐institutionalization for any demographic groups for the period between 1950 and 1980. However, for the twenty‐...
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