Nearly two months after Kalief Browder committed suicide — having suffered from untreated depression after his three-year stint at Rikers — a new Stanford University School of Medicine study concludes juveniles are more likely to be admitted to hospitals for mental health issues than young people outside of the prison system. They are also more likely to spend longer periods of time there.
Researchers studied California youth aged 11 to 18 who were hospitalized between 1997 and 2011, and found that 63 percent of people in the juvenile justice system who were admitted received mental health diagnoses. In contrast, only 19 percent of youth who were not in the juvenile justice system received similar diagnoses. The most common mental health diagnoses involved substance abuse, conduct disorders, and depressive disorders. Inmates tended to be hospitalized one day longer than their counterparts. But the median stay for substance abuse treatment for inmates was 71 days, compared to 28 days for those who were not incarcerated — leading researchers to believe that mental health problems among inmates stemmed from longstanding trauma.
Hospitalized inmates tended to be older black males from large cities — the exact profile of Browder.
“We know young people in the juvenile justice system have a disproportionate burden of mental illness, but I was really surprised by the magnitude of the problem, because hospitalizations typically occur for very severe illness,” explained Arash Anoshiravani, one of the study’s authors and a professor of adolescent medicine. “We are arresting kids who have mental health problems probably related to their experiences as children.”
While the recent study focused on California juveniles specifically, the incarceration of mentally ill youth is a rampant problem nationwide. Among the entire juvenile justice population, 70 percent of incarcerated youth are mentally ill. Many are physically abused and thrown into solitary confinement — two practices that exacerbate trauma.
Similar patterns exist in adult facilities as well. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center and the National Sheriffs’ Association, there were 10 times more people with severe mental illness behind bars than in state psychiatric hospitals in 2012. As states’ mental health resources are cut and people with mental illnesses are over-criminalized, correctional facilities have turned into mental health care facilities. Today, Rikers Island, Cook County Jail, and Los Angeles County Jail are considered the largest mental health care providers in the U.S., but do not have the resources to adequately treat inmates.