This Mental Health Awareness Month let’s talk about how mental illness plays into mass incarceration.

Currently, one in four people incarcerated live with a serious mental illness. People who have a mental illness and are incarcerated serve longer sentences, receive more probation and parole violations, and are more likely to re-enter the legal system after release.

People living with a mental illness do not belong behind bars. It’s time to decriminalize mental illness.  

Below are national and local mental health resources: