There is a staggering gap between mental health and physical health in the USA. While one in four Americans will experience a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetime, fewer than half of those individuals will seek treatment. The same gap exists between the prevalence of mental illness and physical health, with men suffering from depression and women from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia being twice as likely to attempt suicide. The unfortunate news is that very few of these individuals will receive treatment and, as a result, many people are left to struggle alone.

The situation is made worse by the fact that many mentally ill individuals end up in jail or prison. In the 1970s, reports of large numbers of mentally ill people in jails began appearing. This was unprecedented at the time, with the earliest recorded jail population dating back to the nineteenth century. To better understand this situation, we conducted a literature review to find the answer to the question of whether severe mental illness is a major issue in our society and whether this has increased since deinstitutionalization.

Currently, criminal justice and mental health professionals have learned a great deal about how to treat mentally ill people. While they have improved the way mental health and criminal justice departments deal with these people, their effectiveness has been limited. Many interventions have failed in reducing the number of incarcerated people. While they are not yet universally implemented, the most successful interventions are summarized below. When used in the right way, they can have a positive effect on the lives of individuals suffering from mental illness.

The public’s perception of psychiatric illnesses is generally more positive than medical education’s overall response. Still, medical education is a stumbling block and patients must often battle a byzantine workforce of providers. These challenges make the psychiatric field difficult to navigate. Ultimately, no single approach will solve these problems alone. Fortunately, there are some laws in place to help people with mental illness receive the care they need.

Unfortunately, there are negative consequences of this stigma. For example, those working in mental health services claim that they are treated poorly than the general population. Staff perceive personality disorder patients as difficult and less worthy of care. Staff equate personality disorder patients with being attention-seeking, manipulative, and suicidal, which makes them a target for ridicule. This prejudice is not only harmful to patients, but to the staff who care for them.

While it may be difficult for patients to understand the value of seeking treatment for mental illness, the fact remains that mental health care is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. People with mental health problems should not be treated as a burden, especially since treatment can be expensive. Further, this stigma is reinforced by the fact that many psychiatric providers do not have enough time to care for patients. This stigma creates a false sense of shame among sufferers.