A livid judge, police officials, prosecutors, and much of the public railed against Paris Hilton's release as blatant celebrity favoritism.
It was certainly that. But the irony is that Hilton was and should have been released early precisely because she couldn't get the quality treatment she needed at the jail.The problem, of course, is that neither can any of those who aren't rich and famous like her, and won't get favored prisoner treatment.
A significant number of prisoners in the L.A. county jail, and in other overstuffed jails around the country are released without having had a medical exam.
There is no way of telling what kind of mental ailments they suffer from.
That virtually insures that those individuals with the same untreated mental problems that got them locked up in the first place will be jailed again.
Unlike Hilton, the overwhelming majority of them are poor, indigent, minority, and like her increasingly female.
They have absolutely no access to any quality psychiatric care and treatment behind bars. The majority of them, like Hilton, are not violent offenders, but were convicted of petty, low level crimes.The magnitude of the crisis of the mentally challenged imprisoned is so great that the L.A. County system now has the dubious distinction of being the biggest mental health facility in the nation.
The Federal Bureau of Justice estimates that more than a quarter-million offenders are warehoused in America's jails and prisons that suffer acute mental problems.
That's about sixteen percent of the total jail population in America. In California's jails alone, an estimated 85,000 prisoners suffer mental ailments.
A report in 2004 lambasted the county for the chronic shortage of doctors, nurses, medicines, and support services at the L.A. jails.
While there have been some modest improvements in the general quality of medical care for inmates within the jails, for many inmates -- especially the mentally ill -- the conditions are still severe.
GET THE REST OF HUTCHINSON'S ARTICLE HERE.