Psychotic versus nonpsychotic misdemeanants in a large county jail: an analysis of pretrial treatment by the legal system

Abstract

There are significant numbers of mentally ill men and women in jail and the level of their psychopathology is often serious. Once in jail, the psychotic individual is subjected to conditions conducive to further decompensation and higher suicide rates. If this is the case, the duration of confinement--that is, the duration of exposure to this toxic environment--is not trivial. Of further concern, from the standpoint of due process, would be the duration of confinement prior to any determination of guilt or innocence. Therefore, it makes sense to examine what happens to jailed psychotic individuals as they wait for trial. Our experience suggested that pretrial jail time, even for minor offenses, is lengthy. The central hypothesis of our study, then, was that psychotic men, charged with misdemeanor offenses, would be incarcerated for significantly longer periods of time, prior to trial, than their nonpsychotic fellows. Descriptive data was also collected.