Finding Escape Behind Bars: When Jail is the Only Place Mentally Ill Inmates Get Treatment, They Come Back, and It Costs $87 Million

Jul. 21--At the Harris County Jail, deputies and health care workers have a name for them -- frequent fliers.

They are mentally ill homeless people who return to jail so often, sometimes on minor charges, that they become familiar to the psychiatric staff.

During a recent survey, county officials found that more than 400 of the jail's 11,000 inmates were homeless and suffered from a major mental illness: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or a chronic depressive-psychotic disorder. They were among 1,900 inmates on psychotropic medications.

When the mentally ill homeless leave jail -- and leave behind its mental health care staff -- many stop taking medication and end up on the street again. Treatment resumes only when they commit a crime and return to jail or their dementia overwhelms them and they are brought to an emergency psychiatric center.