Institutionalizing Illness: How Carcerality Shapes Mental Healthcare

Increasingly, jails and prisons across the US are being portrayed as institutions of care and expected to be responsible for mental healthcare. This portrayal obscures the inherent harms of incarceration and the role played by the penal system in victimizing people with mental illnesses. In this paper, I outline the history of the relationship between mental healthcare and incarceration, arguing against narratives that mental illness should be and has always been associated with homelessness and incarceration. I then turn to the present, using Cook County Department of Corrections to illustrate the harms of portraying carceral institutions as healthcare providers. Finally, I discuss threats and opportunities for building a brighter future for people with stigmatized mental illnesses.