Inpatient psychiatric bed capacity across the nation has shrunk by over 90% since the 1950s through the movement of “deinstitutionalization”, moving many individuals with severe mental illnesses to emergency rooms, jails or the streets. There are nearly three times more individuals with a serious mental illness in jail or prison, than in treatment facilities. ERs have become the most common entry point for a psychiatric crisis, and on average it takes 3.5 days for a hospital bed to become...
