This course will examine the tumultuous relationship linking the criminal justice system with the severe mentally ill population in the United States. We will examine the process of deinstitutionalization and how the closing down of the nation's mental health institutions released thousands of mentally ill patients into the streets of America. What were the consequences of this ill-informed policy decision? With little or no treatment options available, our nation's jails and prisons are now de facto mental health facilities and individuals with mental illness are conspicuously overrepresented in our criminal justice settings. This course will examine the criminal justice environment in which individuals with severe mental illness navigate - from arrest to longer-term incarceration to probation to parole - and the various treatment options and resources (or lack thereof) provided to this marginalized population by the criminal justice system while in prison and upon release into the community. Restrictions: Junior or Senior class level. Prerequisites: CJUS 100 or a 100 level or higher Sociology course or a 100 level or higher Government course. (3:3,0)