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:

• Michigan 221: https://www.mi211.org/
• National Alliance on Mental Illness: https://www.nami.org/
• Community Mental Health Services Programs: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/cmh_8_1_02_37492_7.PDF
• Free Clinics of Michigan: http://www.fcomi.org/