Seventeen percent of Philadelphia inmates living with serious mental illness

Can Pennsylvania find a way out for thousands of mentally ill inmates languishing in county jails?

Bruce Herdman, chief of medical operations for the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, sometimes describes the county jails this way: “This is the largest psychiatric hospital in the state of Pennsylvania.” Forty percent of Philadelphia inmates are on psychotropic medications; 17 percent have what’s considered a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression.