Please describe the role of prison in reducing recidivism in the mentally ill. You may use this article: http://law.loyno.edu/sites/law.loyno.edu/files/Cummings-FI-PSL.pdf

This article argues that putting the mentally ill in prison is ineffective, costly, and fails to reduce recidivism because it overlooks the underlying problem: the convict’s mental illness.
The article focuses on the impact of so-called “specialty courts,” like drug courts, domestic violence courts, and mental illness courts, to create individual solutions for defendants with particular types of problems. The use of these courts focuses on rehabilitating a convicted defendant rather than merely punishing them. The article then focuses on the state of Louisiana, which has one of the highest prison populations per capita and barely uses mental health courts.
The article discusses how the criminal justice system fails to help those with mental illnesses and how this failure ends up costing the taxpayers of America. By failing to help those with mental illnesses overcome their condition and by simply punishing them for the crimes they commit, the system fails to solve the issue of recidivism.