MORE THAN 15% OF INMATES MENTALLY ILL, FEDERAL REPORT SAYS

WASHINGTON - More than 15 percent of inmates in U.S. jails and prisons - and
almost 20 percent of those jailed for violent crimes - suffer from some form
of mental illness, the Justice Department reported yesterday.

Many of the 283,800 mentally ill prisoners have long criminal records and
histories of alcohol and drug use and physical and sexual abuse, according
to the report, which was prepared by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. On
average, they serve sentences 15 months longer than other inmates.

Mentally ill patients are disproportionately common in state prisons and
local jails, where they account for 16 percent of the population, the report
said. Seven percent of federal inmates are mentally ill, it said.

As the Justice Department's first comprehensive attempt to catalog the
number of mentally ill inmates, the report could not say whether their
numbers have increased or decreased. Nor did it address mentally ill
people's impact on the prison system or the reasons why they end up behind bars

Some medical researchers and scientists criticized the Justice Department
study for grossly understating the number of mentally ill inmates. The
department classified as mentally ill those inmates who reported in a survey
that they either suffered from a mental disorder or had spent a night in a
mental hospital or treatment program.