On February 27th, 2017 the Editorial Board of the New York Times posted an editorial called Mental Illness, Untreated Behind Bars. 

This editorial is about how a large percentage of the population in jail/prison are mentally ill and how that costs taxpayers a lot of money. The mentally ill are constantly in and out of jail because they are not being treated for their illness, just thrown behind bars.

This editorial is arguing that mentally ill people in jail should have the opportunity to get treatment for their illness.

This is a really great editorial with great information on creating a better system to help the large population of mentally ill people. There is a initiative called Stepping Up which helps local agencies develop ways to divert people that are no threat to the public into treatments.

In this editorial it states that a jail will distribute 700 prescription per day and spend $8 million per year caring for the mentally ill.

The intended audience for this editorial is going to be adults and those holding positions in office that can make the decision to become a part of the initiative to divert mentally ill people to treatment rather than behind bars.

The credibility of the authors is not to great. They may have had good sources of information, however they are not directly linked to the prison/jail system nor are they holding governmental positions that deal with this issue.

To sum it up, this editorial supports the funding of programs to help jail/prisons divert mentally ill inmates that are no threat to society into treatments. I agree with the view of this article because it 1) helps those people so they can be integrated back into society and 2) it is more cost effective for tax payers in the long hall.