70% of people in American jails and prisons have a mental illness, substance abuse disorder, or both.

We now have more people with mental illness in jails and prisons in this country than there are in mental health institutions.

We need to have more resources.

And unfortunately, a lot of the people who need mental health services end up in jail.

And that's exactly why they ended up jails.

They didn't get the help that they needed beforehand.

Our hope as mental health professionals is that we can go in and we can star helping these individuals heal instead of continuing those repeating cycles of going into the criminal justice system.

95% of these individuals are going to be my neighbors.

Could be your neighbors one day.

And I always ask myself, would that be somebody I'd be comfortable living next?

If I don't address the menta health needs of the individuals that when they're returned to community, they're only going to be worse.

Our jails and prisons need to stop being the repository of the mentally ill.