One month before Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election, he signed the Mental Health Systems Act to bolster mental health centers nationwide. But when Reagan took office, he immediately repealed most of it!
And that kicked off a serious domino effect that hurt Black people the most.
As the U.S. divested from mental health resources, hundreds of thousands of mental health patients were left unhoused, on the streets and in shoddy board-and-care homes. And that helped create a vicious cycle.
Where does this country send people they believe to be disposable? Prisons and jails. And by 1990, along with mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, and broken windows policing, fully 10% of all incarcerated people were diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder!
Today, 37% of people in prisons and 44% in local jails have been diagnosed with a mental illness.
Black Americans statistically experience more mental health issues, but get less access to mental health care. Black Americans make up over 40% of the unhoused population and 38% of people in prisons and jails, despite being only 13% of the population.
The criminal legal system and government don’t care about our mental health. In fact, they make it worse, then blame US for being unhoused, incarcerated, and impoverished. There’s no doubt about it: we deserve better!