Bipolar disorder

...ba href=/bipolar disorder/a/b, a mental illness, but that he wasn't on medication for it.That's on the arresting officer's information sheet, which a detention deputy signed when Griffin arrived at 7:20 that morning.The information sheet also said Griffin wasn't displaying "unusual, bizarre or violent behavior" and wasn't suicidal.

He refused, however, to sign the information sheet to confirm how much money he had upon arriving at the booking area.Griffin was put into the general jail population, then transferred to an isolation cell soon after."They do have a special needs unit for the inmates that are the most symptomatic, but there's limited space," said Risdon Slate, mental-health advocate and criminology department chairman at Florida Southern College."The number of (special needs) beds available in the jail certainly nowhere meets the number of people taking psychotropic medications."Hundreds of inmates in the Polk County jail system - almost one in five - are on medicine for mental disorders.

The Special Needs Unit, or SNU, can house 30 men and 16 women, a fraction of the 400-plus on medication.And the number who take psychotropic medications isn't a true picture of those with mental illnesses.

Others aren't on medication for a variety of reasons.As many as three-fourths of people arrested who have mental illnesses aren't on their medications when they come to the jail, said Derek Zimmerman, mental-health liaison for the jail.He is one of four people at the jail - the medical di...

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