For people who have schizophrenia, and don't get treatment, the result is far too often that they end up homeless or in jail (most often due to minor offenses).

• Approximately 200,000 individuals with schizophrenia or manic-depressive illness are homeless, constituting one-third of the approximately 600,000 homeless population (total homeless population statistic based on data from Department of Health and Human Services). These 200,000 individuals comprise more than the entire population of many U.S. cities, such as Hartford, Connecticut; Charleston, South Carolina; Reno, Nevada; Boise, Idaho; Scottsdale, Arizona; Orlando, Florida; Winston Salem, North Carolina; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Abilene, Texas or Topeka, Kansas.
  
• At any given time, there are more people with untreated severe psychiatric illnesses living on America’s streets than are receiving care in hospitals. Approximately 90,000 individuals with schizophrenia or manic-depressive illness are in hospitals receiving treatment for their disease.
  Source: Treatment Advocacy Center

Schizophrenia and Violence

People with schizophrenia are far more likely to harm themselves than be violent toward the public. Violence is not a symptom of schizophrenia.

News and entertainment media tend to link mental illnesses including schizophrenia to criminal violence. Most people with schizophrenia, however, are not violent toward others but are withdrawn and prefer to be left alone. Drug or alcohol abuse raises the risk of violence in people with schizophrenia, particularly if the illness is untreated, but also in people who have no mental illness.

Substance abuse significantly raises the rate of violence in people with schizophrenia but also in people who do not have any mental illness. People with paranoid and psychotic symptoms, which can become worse if medications are discontinued, may also be at higher risk for violent behavior. When violence does occur, it is most frequently targeted at family members and friends, and more often takes place at home.

Schizophrenia and Jail

The vast majority of people with schizophrenia who are in jail have been charged with misdemeanors such as trespassing.

As many as one in five (20%) of the 2.1 million Americans in jail and prison are seriously mentally ill, far outnumbering the number of mentally ill who are in mental hospitals, according to a comprehensive study. Source: Human Rights Watch

The American Psychiatric Association estimated in 2000 that one in five prisoners were seriously mentally ill, with up to 5 percent actively psychotic at any given moment.

In 1999, the statistical arm of the Justice Department estimated that 16 percent of state and federal prisoners and inmates in jails were suffering from mental illness. These illnesses included schizophrenia, manic depression (or bipolar disorder) and major depression.

The figures are higher for female inmates, the report says. The Justice Department study found that 29 percent of white female inmates, 22 percent of Hispanic female inmates and 20 percent of black female inmates were identified as mentally ill.

Many individuals with schizophrenia revolve between hospitals, jails and shelters. In Illinois 30% of patiants discharged from state psychiatric hospitals are rehospitalized within 30 days. In New York 60% of discharged patients are rehospitalized within a year. Source: Surviving Schizophrenia

Additional Resources - The Problem:

Homelessness: The Tragic Side-effect of Non-treatment

Schizophrenia and Homelessness - Our demand for efficiency will turn the hardest hit into outcasts

Schizophrenia: Inner demons contribute to the homeless plight

The National Resource Center on Homelessness and Mental Illness

Gender differences in the relationship of homelessness to symptom severity, substance abuse, and neuroleptic noncompliance in schizophrenia (Pubmed research)

Solutions

Real Audio Recording: The Mental Illness System: How It Broke and How to Fix It
Speaker: Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, President, Treatment Advocacy Center, Bethesda, Maryland, September 2000. Don't have "Real Audio Player" - download a free copy from here.

Continuity of Care for the Homeless (text - Mentalwellness.com)

Recommended Book List - Schizophrenia in Society - Homelessness, Poverty, and other issues