Associated Press
NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced the creation of a task force that seeks to reduce the number of mentally ill inmates in New York City’s jails.
The panel of government and private sector experts will try to come up with effective strategies to treat mentally ill people inside and outside the criminal justice system.
The mayor says that for too long, city jails have acted as de facto mental health facilities.
About 40 percent of the city’s jail population has some form of mental illness.
The initiative comes in the wake of Associated Press reports on the death of a mentally ill inmate left unattended in his cell as the temperature rose to 101 degrees.
The panel is to report to the mayor in September.