No one at the shelter is notified that the client will be arriving, and no mental health information is sent to the shelter prior to the client's release. During intake into the shelter system, each person is asked questions about psychiatric history. But those who are not obviously ill, if they withhold information about their psychiatric history and do not identify themselves as needing psychiatric services, will be put in a general population shelter and will not receive mental health services. Many of these shelter clients, having been released from jail or prison with little or no medication, soon decompensate. They proceed to disrupt the shelter or endanger themselves until they are hospitalized or rearrested. New York City's shelters are not merely full of people with mental illness who recently left jail or prison; they are full of acutely psychotic people who recently left jail or prison. People with mental illness entering the criminal justice system have complex service needs that incarceration does little to alleviate. In fact, by the time most people with mental illness leave the criminal justice system, their problems have been exacerbated. People with mental illnesses have difficulty protecting themselves while incarcerated. Jails and prisons are often harsh, dangerous environments for inmates, and are especially so for the mentally ill. Common symptoms of mental illness include bizarre and disorganized behavior; these behaviors make mentally ill prisoners vulnerable. Bizarre behavior often annoys correction staff and other inmates and leads to victimization. Disorganization makes prisoners with mental illness easy prey for aggressive fellow prisoners. Finally, untreated mental illness may make inmates' behavior erratic, alarming others and at times provoking violent responses from guards and other inmates. Like all prisoners, inmates with mental illness learn institutional behaviors that help them cope with incarceratio...
