Learn more about the prevalence and impact of childhood mental illness.
FACT: 5.4% or 1.3 million Californians have a serious mental illness (California Department of Mental Health, 2000).
FACT: 5 to 9 % of the state’s children aged 9 through 17 (212,000 to 382,000) have a serious emotional disturbance with extreme functional impairment. The concentration of these numbers is higher in areas with higher poverty rates which, in California are often minority communities –especially Latino. (“California’s Mental Health System: Underfunded from the Start”, The Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, 2000).
FACT: Nearly 1.4 million children ages 0-19 experience a mental illness during any given year. More than 600,000 will not receive adequate treatment. These include those experiencing the onset of adult disabling mental illness such as mood disorders, depression and manic-depression or bipolar disorder. (Young Hearts and Minds, Making a Commitment to Children’s Mental Health, The Little Hoover Commission, 2001).
FACT: 40 to 90% of children in California’s Juvenile Justice System have one or more mental disorders. Local juvenile detention facilities spend about $3,500 to house a child for a 27-day stay. The average daily number of youth in California’s local detention facilities is 11,529. CYA spends $3,100 per month to house a child –and $1,750 more a month to treat each one with mental illness. One month in a state hospital for youth costs $10,000 and there are over 200 children in the state hospital each month. (Never too Late To Prevent Youth Crime and Violence, Little Hoover Commission, 2001).
FACT: While less than 5% of the State’s population suffers from some mental illness, they comprise 10 to 20% of prisoners and an estimated 20 to 40% of the homeless population –altogether more than 50,000 individuals with disabling mental illness live on and off the streets of California. (Source: AB 34 Report from 2002, California State Department of Mental Health).
FACT: California’s prisons and jails are now our de-facto mental institutions. We spend an estimated $1.2 to 1.8 billion on law enforcement dealing with people with mental illness. For roughly $35 to $50 per day, these same individuals can be provided with comprehensive mental health services that can ultimately lead to a return to employment and an ability to get off of public assistance. (California State Department of Correction 2002 and the California State Department of Mental Health 2002).
FACT: In 2000, over 3,000 Californians died by Suicide – an average of 8.5 people per day; 33,000 suicide attempters were treated in emergency rooms or hospitals. Total costs exceeded $275,000,000. Roughly 90% of all individuals that take their own lives by suicide have a diagnosable mental illness. (National Strategy for Suicide Prevention - The US Surgeon General, 2002).
