The rise in American incarceration coincides with the de-institutionalization of psychiatric patients and subsequent defunding of community mental health programs. Perhaps they are linked, and prisons have now taken on the previous role of psychiatric institutions.

The fact is, I used to see mentally ill patients all the time and have no where to send them. Often, they would turn to crime just to survive or get off the streets.

While I agree there were abuses in the past, wholesale destruction of the old system is a very American response without any real thought to its replacement.