PBS Frontline looks at how American prisons and jails have become the new mental hospitals. This documentary is not particularly pleasant. Viewer discretion is advised.

Frontline: The New Asylums, Part 1

03:31 “Nobody really. I don’t have any family right now.” 
04:27 What happened when we shut down the mental hospitals.
05:20 500,000 mentally ill in jails and prisons throughout the U.S.
06:43 ”No matter how much I kick on the door, ain’t nobody hear me.”
09:15 ”You have to have a lot more patience here.”
10:35 ”Who is the main person you have telepathy with?”

Frontline: The New Asylums, Part 2

00:44 ”Taylor had two toothbrushes up his arm.”
01:45 ”Have you not been taking your medication? Is that true?”
03:15 “He would just take it whenever he felt like it.” 
05:52 ”If I had known I was going to have to go through all this …”
08:25 ”The officer is accusing you of spitting on him.”
10:30 Disciplining the symptoms of illness

Frontline: The New Asylums, Part 3

0:44 Final option: the prison psychiatric hospital
2:00 A 24 hour treatment environment 
4:00 ”We are thinking of sending you back to Lucasville.”
5:30 “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.” 
3:40 ”We’ve been able to treat him very effectively.”
8:30 ”We hate to do it but we know this person will ge treated.”

Frontline: The New Asylums, Part 4

00:10 It began with a bicycle
01:45 ”They would probably never get out of segregation.”
2:15 ”It’s like falling into an abyss.”
05:00 ”I know that I could really function on the outside.”
07:00 ”I’ve been locked up for so long that I have fear of going …”
08:20 Guess what? 98% of everyone who goes to prison gets out.

Frontline: The New Asylums, Part 5

0:28 “I’m not close with my family anymore.”
1:20 ”If they don’t have the energy and insight to do that …”
2:40 ”You can’t just lock him up for 10-20 years …”
2:36 What has changed since 1973
3:40 We shouldn’t be improving prison mental health care …
5:20 ”He committed the crime because he wanted to go back to prison.”