Jails Versus Mental Hospitals: The Milwaukee Approach to a Social Dilemma

Abstract

The authors' previous national data statistical analysis revealed the existence of negative linear relationships between mental health admissions and jail census data. In view of the above, a study was made of the Milwaukee data using similar parameters in order to assess whether a correlation, positive or negative, exists between the national data and the Milwaukee data. The statistical analyses of Milwaukee data are at variance with the national findings. A moderately strong positive relationship between the number of persons booked in the Milwaukee County Jail and the admissions to the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex (MCMHC) has been found. The existence of several moderately strong negative correlational relationships between legal and mental health admissions variables is demonstrated. Further analyses point out that there is in Milwaukee a positive relationship between the mental health system and, in particular, the Milwaukee County Forensic Unit and the jail-judiciary system, whereby mentally ill offenders, through a cooperative screening at booking, are promptly identified and referred for psychiatric care to the MCMHC. The authors suggest the Milwaukee system as a model for those cities that have not yet implemented a similar functional organization in dealing with the problem of the mentally ill in the United States city jails.

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