Criminal Justice

From the Scholars Strategy Network, written by Kelly Frailing, Loyola University New Orleans. This piece has been edited for Journalist’s Resource.

A lower resting heart rate partially explains why men commit more crime than women, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

According to some estimates, as much as 50% of the U.S. prison population suffers from some form of mental illness. As a consequence, each year thousands of mentally ill offenders are sent to prisons that — because of overcrowding and limited resources — are poorly equipped to treat them. They are placed in solitary confinement, subjected to punishments inappropriate for their conditions and end up serving longer sentences than the general inmate population.