The Rise of

Mental
Illness
WE NEED TO START MAKING CHANGES
 The need for mental health treatment is on the rise, and this country is
starting to take notice of its impact. Long gone are the days of ignoring
illness, yet somehow our country is not taking notice of the largest
problem facing healthcare. Many states do not have the resources for
psychiatric patients to get the care they need. When they don’t get care
they end up in jail or on the streets. I want to see what difference there is
between states and the amount of patients seeking mental health
treatment, and the amount of patients receiving their treatment in the jail
or prison system. I hypothesize that the prison system numbers are going
to be much higher than those being treated in hospital.
 How does mental health play a part in
crimes committed?
Nearly two million people with mental illness are booked
into jails each year. With that staggering amount nearly
15% of men and 30% of women booked into jails are
diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Unfortunately at
least 83% of jail inmates with a mental illness do not get
access to needed treatment.

How does the average cost of psychiatric

treatment effect health outcomes?
14.7% (over 6.3 million) of adults with mental illness are
currently not insured. 56.5% of adults with mental illness
received no treatment in the past year, and for those
treated 20.1% reported treatment needs not being met.
The greatest reasons people are not getting treatment
are lack of insurance (or inadequate insurance,) lack of
available treatment providers, lack of available
treatment types, and insufficient finances to cover costs
(copays, uncovered treatment types, or providers not
taking insurance)
The method I decided to use is the T-test method. The reason
I went with this method is because it can easily compare 2
separate data sets with multiple participants. Since I am
testing whether there are more people with mental illness in
the correction system or in regular treatment this test was a
viable option for me. Since it allows for several different
participants data into the two categories I was also able to
specify this by state as well. This will give me a more well
rounded data set to compare with.
 Histogram of Corrections Mentally Ill
7
Number of States Providing Percentage

6
Histogram of State Population
5
Recieving Mental Health Treatment
4
14

Frequency of States Providing Percentage

3 12
2 10

1 8

0 6

2
Percentage Being Treated For Mental Illness in Corrections
0
1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 More
Bin
What is a HISTOGRAM?
A histogram is a diagram consisting of rectangles
who’s area is proportional to the frequency of a This histogram shows that throughout the
variable and whose width is equal to the class researched numbers there is a wider percentage
interval. It is a plot that lets you discover, and range of people being treated for mental illness in
show, the underlying frequency distribution of a set the prison system than being treated in society. This
of continuous data. data pushes toward the hypothesis that people
are being treated or medicate after it is too late.
 Percentage of state population receiving hospital Percentage of people being treated for mental
treatment for mental health health in corrections
30
100

90
25
80
Percentage recieving treatment

Percentage being treated

20 70

60

15 50

40
10
30

20
5

10

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25

States States
The standard
deviation rounded
in the jail percent is
21, where as the
deviation in the
healthcare percent
is rounded to 2.
This tells us that
there is a
significantly higher
difference in data
numbers in the jail
percentages than
in the healthcare
percentages.

Looking at both of these tables it shows that the Mean

(average) is fairly different. The average percentage being
treated in Jails is 36.13%, and the average getting
treatment in healthcare is 20.16%. This information clues us
in to the fact that more people are being treated for their
mental illness in jails than in society.
100

90
Treatment per location
Results
80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

Treatment in Jail (%) Treatment in healthcare (%)

As you can see from the chart to the left, there is a significant
difference between the percentage of population being
treated in the correction system vs treatment in society.
Some of the highest states for treatment in Jail have some of
the lowest for treatment outside in the community. This may
show there is a correlation between access to proper
healthcare and the amount of people ending up in
corrections.
 The evidence is astounding and
hard to ignore. There is an
insanely large difference in the
percentage of people being
treated in the correction system
versus being treated outside the
bars. There needs to be a
change to how we service our
community as a whole, and take
care of those in need of help
before its too late.
WE OWE THE PEOPLE
Proposal for mental health reform
- Create more facilities
- Create more awareness to the
community
- Educate the public with free
mental health screenings
- Find ways to budget more
funding to those coming
uninsured
- Lobby for those already in
prison to get the treatment
they need
 This research project has helped me understand how to efficiently use the Excel program, and how
to do quick calculations. I am going to be able to continue my understanding of Excel throughout my
administrative career, and also use these new techniques from this class. We are always using Excel
to formulate staffing numbers, budgets, projections, and even down to the food and supplies. There is
usually someone that comes up with the frameworks for us so it will be very refreshing to now be
able to complete it myself.

There are so many places that using statistics could help out in
healthcare. It can be used in case studies, clinical trials, probability of
patient demographic to staff turnaround, client survey results, site
specific comparisons, and formulating quality control issues. This will also
help me in my research at Bryant and Stratton by allowing me to
showcase my data in a more user friendly format.
Access to Mental Health Care and Incarceration. (2017, November 14). Retrieved from
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/access-mental-health-care-and-incarceration

NAMI. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Public-Policy/Jailing-People-with-Mental-Illness

Vera Institute of Justice. (n.d.). Incarceration Trends. Retrieved from http://trends.vera.org/incarceration-

rates?data=pretria

Correctional Health. (2017, December 20). Retrieved from

https://www.cdc.gov/correctionalhealth/resources.html

The State of Mental Health in America. (2017, December 18). Retrieved from
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/state-mental-health-america

Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/index.shtml

State and Substate Estimates of Serious Mental Illness from the 2012–2014 National Surveys on Drug Use and
Health. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/report_3190/ShortReport-
3190.html