Mentally ill people in prisons

On my local news broadcast tonight, I heard a pair of disturbing statistics:

Last week, Team 5 uncovered the case of Nelson Rodriguez, a mentally ill prisoner who took his own life while in Walpole State Prison.

NewsCenter 5′s Janet Wu reported that Rodriguez was among many mentally ill inmates behind bars in Massachusetts, a fact that the Department of Correction acknowledged Monday.

According to the Romney administration, 19 percent of all men in the Massachusetts Corrections system suffer from mental illness and 66 percent of women do.

Advocates for inmates believe the numbers are higher.

Rodriguez, diagnosed as mentally retarded and severely mentally ill, was the last of four suicides in the state prison system last year.