At the intersection of health and justice.

The concentration of incarcerated individuals with mental health and physical problems in the United States has led to the labeling of jails and prisons as the “hospitals of last resort” for those unable to access healthcare services in the community. As funding for community behavioral health services has dwindled, the number of people with serious psychiatric conditions in the nation’s correctional facilities has grown.1,2 There are currently three times as many people with serious mental illness in jails and prisons than in state hospitals.3 A 2006 Bureau of Justice Statistics report estimated that 705,600 adults with mental illness were housed in state prisons, 70,200 were housed in federal prisons, and 479,900 were housed in local jails, at an annual cost to taxpayers of $9 billion per year.4, 5 These statistics signal the importance of improving data sharing between the criminal justice and community healthcare systems to increase treatment access and coordination of services for the medically underserved.