Life After Prison for People With Mental Illness | The Released (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

In this 2009 follow-up to the groundbreaking documentary “The New Asylums,” FRONTLINE examined what happens to people who are living with mental illness when they leave prison. (Aired 2009)

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In 2005’s “The New Asylums,” FRONTLINE filmmakers Karen O’Connor and Miri Navasky went deep inside the Ohio prison system as it struggled to provide care to thousands of inmates with mental illness.

In 2009’s “The Released,” they returned to Ohio to tell the next chapter in this story. That year, more than 700,000 people were expected to be released from prison across the U.S., more than half of them dealing with mental illness. Typically, these people would leave prison with a bus ticket, $75 in cash, and two weeks' worth of medication to treat their illness. Studies from the time showed that nearly two-thirds of people with mental illness released from prison — often poor and out of touch with friends and family — were rearrested within 18 months. “The Released” offered an intimate look at the lives of people with serious mental illnesses who were released from prison but struggled to remain free.

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FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.

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