The new asylums

DVD - 2005

Fewer than 55,000 Americans currently receive treatment in psychiatric hospitals. Meanwhile, almost 10 times that number, nearly 500,000, mentally ill men and women are serving time in U.S. jails and prisons. As sheriffs and prison wardens become the unexpected and often ill-equipped caretakers of this burgeoning population, they raise a troubling new concern: Have America's jails and prisons become its new asylums. The program goes deep inside Ohio's state prison system to explore the complex and growing issue of mentally ill prisoners.