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Hindi Research Article
The Cost of Incarceration: A Descriptive Analysis of Low-income Mentally Ill Misdemeanor Offenders in DeKalb County, Georgia (2012)
Sonia Tetlow1 and Victoria Phillips2*
1Sonia Tetlow conducted this study while a student at Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. She is currently an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Research Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, USA
2Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of the Associate Director for Policy, USA
- Corresponding Author:
- Victoria Phillips
Rollins School of Public Health
Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road NE, USA
Tel: (404) 727-9974
Fax: (404) 727-9198
E-mail: vphil01@emory.edu
Received Date: June 02, 2016; Accepted Date: July 07, 2016; Published Date: July 14, 2016
Citation: Tetlow S, Phillips V (2016) The Cost of Incarceration: A Descriptive Analysis of Low-income Mentally Ill Misdemeanor Offenders in DeKalb County, Georgia (2012). J Community Med Health Educ 6:450. doi:10.4172/2161-0711.1000450
Copyright: © 2016 Tetlow S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objectives: We collected the jail housing unit histories and calculated the costs of incarcerating mentally ill misdemeanor offenders who were arrested in DeKalb County, Georgia in 2012 and represented by the Public Defender’s Office.
Methods: We obtained records from the Sheriff’s and Public Defender’s Offices for the 2012 cohort. Days of detainment in and movement among jail housing and forensic hospital units were determined for those with moderate and severe illness. The costs of incarcerating offenders with mental illness, relative to those without, were calculated.
Results: Offenders with severe illness spent an average of 64 days (SD=129) in jail compared to 39 days (SD=65) for those with moderate illness (p<0.05). DeKalb County spent 26 times more per offender for those with severe illness compared to those with none, 89% of which was spent on specialized mental health units.
Conclusions: Mentally ill offenders spend a disproportionate amount of time in jail relative to those with no mental illness. Duration and cost vary with degree of illness. Diverting these offenders, particularly severe cases, into treatment could improve health outcomes and reduce criminal justice costs.
