The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails in the USA and Some Features of the Hungarian Situation

Abstract

The number of individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails now exceeds the number of state psychiatric hospitals tenfold. Most of these inmates would have been treated in state psychiatric hospitals before the deinstitutionalization process, which led to the closing of the hospitals. The inmates have a right to receive medical care. This right has been affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The importance of the case of Harper v. Washington.  Deinstitutionalization in Hungary. Work in the Psychiatric Observer Medical Institute (the Hungarian “IMEI”).