A mental health crisis should not be a death sentence. We must fund systems of care, rather than increase funding for systems of punishment.
In recent months, several reports of people being detained by law enforcement and dying in state custody have come to light–each representing just a drop in the bucket of carceral violence.
One man starved to death in an Arkansas jail. Another starved to death in an Indiana jail. And most recently, a man was allegedly eaten alive by insects in a Georgia jail.
All three of these men lived with mental illness, were criminalized in the midst of a crisis, and held in unspeakable conditions pre-trial. Each needed medical attention, but was left to die.
LaShawn Johnson, who had schizophrenia, was held in a bug-infested cell in the psychiatric wing of a Georgia county jail for three months before being found dead with his entire body covered in bed bugs.
Joshua McLemore, who also had schizophrenia, was arrested during a psychotic episode, stripped naked, and held in solitary confinement for three weeks in an Indiana county jail, until he died of malnutrition.
Larry Eugene Price Jr., also arrested during a mental health crisis, was held in solitary confinement in an Arkansas county jail for over a year, losing nearly 100 pounds before dying of acute dehydration and malnutrition.
The UN constitutes anything more than 15 days in solitary as torture.
These men died in jail for two avoidable reasons: this country’s lack of investment in community-based systems of mental health crisis response, and police officers choosing to put them there. For all too many, police contact is the beginning of a pipeline to neglect, torture, and even death.
Further investments in systems of punishment will only exacerbate the cycle of criminalization, abuse, and violence. But if we begin to make necessary investments in systems of community care, we can prevent similar tragedies in the future.