OKPOLICY.ORG
“It costs about $23,000 per year to house an inmate with SMI, severe mental illness. That’s about $4,000 per year more than other inmates. But it costs only $5,000 per year to treat someone with a brain disease, a few hundred dollars more if they’re in an intensive program through a drug court or mental health court. The first problem is that the alternative court systems are full; new people get in only when someone graduates. And if there’s no opening, they go from being a client of White’s to an inmate of Allbaugh’s at four- to five-times the price, and with a much less desirable outcome. Prisons just don’t make good hospitals.”
– Ted Streuli, editor of the Journal Record, arguing the legislature should invest in treatment for addiction and mental illness rather than incarceration (Source)
