Reducing Mentally Ill Offenders in the Criminal Justice System A Review of the Literature

Tracy L. Taylor

  Over the past couple of decades, studies have shown that the number of non-violent mentally ill offenders in correctional facilities has increased significantly across the country. The result of this phenomenon has caused headaches for the criminal justice and mental health systems. What contributed to these increases and what should be done to alleviate the problems associated with it have become hot topics over the past few years. In an effort to determine whether these numbers can be reduced, this literature review of mentally ill offenders in correctional facilities focuses on three main areas – the scope of the problem, the contributing factors and efforts to alleviate the problem.