State Prisons

State prisons refer to correctional facilities that are operated by a state government rather than federal government. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the effective treatment of severe mental illness, approximately 234,200 individuals with severe mental illness were incarcerated in state prisons across the United States in 2014. This number comprised 15% of the total inmates located in U.S. state prisons that year. This reflected a 5% increase over 10 years, based on statistics collected by the Department of Justice in 2004. Inmate rights to health care, including mental health care, are defined by the U.S. Constitution (Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment) and in several landmark U.S. District and Supreme Court cases, including decisions in Estelle ...

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