Trapped: Mental Illness in American Prisons

This is a disturbing short clip about the ways in which our prisons are becoming the new mental asylums or sanitariums - inhumane facilities in which we house the mentally ill who have lost all access to medications and therapy due to (largely GOP instigated) budget cuts that have gutted social service agencies.

To view some interviews with the men, go to the site.

Trapped: Mental Illness in American Prisons

Posted by The Situationist Staff on October 6, 2011

From Movie Website: 

The continuous withdrawal of mental health funding has turned jails and prisons across the nation into the default mental health facilities.


The system designed for security is now trapped with treating mental illness and the mentally ill are often trapped inside the system with nowhere else to go.


Documentary photographer Jenn Ackerman takes us inside the Correctional Psychiatric Treatment Unit of the Kentucky State Reformatory to see how a state is meeting the needs of this growing population.