This week I wrote for the MacArthur Foundation about disability in American jails. The numbers are stark and reveal a systemic crisis, almost 20 years since I first started covering this issue as a reporter.
In 2025, individuals in jails are four times more likely to have a non-psychiatric disability than the general population. This disparity deepens significantly for cognitive disabilities, with people in jails seven times more likely to have them. These figures highlight a profound overrepresentation, suggesting that many are in the system due to a severe lack of community support, rather than criminality.
Mental health conditions further compound this issue. Over 44 percent of people in jails have a mental health condition, a situation primarily attributed to the systemic lack of community-based mental health services. Behaviors stemming from neurodivergence, like autism or ADHD, or from mental health crises, are frequently misinterpreted as aggression or non-compliance, leading to punishment, segregation, or forced medication. The system itself frequently denies essential accommodations and exacerbates existing conditions, further entrenching individuals in a cycle of harm. These statistics serve as a powerful call for a paradigm shift.
In 2006 I was a news reporter in Portland, Oregon. That September, the police killed a 42-year-old man with schizophrenia called James Chasse. I reported in-depth on the case and spent seven years making a documentary about his death. You can watch the entire film on YouTube now, although I warn you, it’s heavy stuff. It’s a good film. But it’s heavy stuff. Here’s the link:
Police officers suspected Mr. Chasse had been urinating in the street and pursued him when he ran. Witnesses described officers tackling him forcefully, with knees to the chest, punches to the face, and kicks, and the use of a Taser. Despite appearing to be “passed out literally in a pool of his blood,” to quote one witness, and bleeding from his face, officers were seen “just kind of standing around watching him” and drinking Starbucks coffee. I’ll never forget the coffee. That, to me, was the most chilling detail. Also, the images of Mr. Chasse lying hog-tied at the officers’ feet in the street.
Crucially, paramedics were not fully informed of the force used or Mr. Chasse’s periods of unconsciousness, and officers lied, telling them he was under the influence of cocaine. He wasn’t. This led to a decision by police not to transport him to a hospital but to jail, despite a paramedic offering transport twice. He later died from internal injuries, primarily broken ribs, which a medical expert stated would typically only occur in high-speed car crashes. I’m glad to see that the City of Portland recently had a screening of the film for the public. That’s not exactly how they treated us when we were making the movie.
Ultimately, while Chasse’s death led to a $1.6 million settlement with his family and the city claiming to have made “substantial changes” in use-of-force and medical transport policies, and implementing crisis intervention training, the officers directly involved faced minimal, and ultimately revoked, discipline for their actions. Mr. Chasse’s death highlighted a system where police actions, even when resulting in death, are often defended, and internal findings are not always made public.
Very little has changed, in other words. Still, on the night of the film’s premiere, Mr. Chasse’s father told me I had “done a good thing,” and I burst into tears. I didn’t expect to and I feel bad about my self-indulgent reaction, now. But reporting on Mr. Chasse’s death, and making the film, had a profound effect on me. At times I felt like the only reporter who had dug in on the story. It did not feel to me that many people in Portland really understood the importance of this horrific incident. I was determined to make them see it.
It’s what deepened my commitment to reporting on law enforcement in America. It’s what brought me to New Orleans where I also reported on the city’s jail system and its repeated failings. Jail is the lens through which power and inequality refract. It’s where we inflict our values on the country’s most vulnerable people. We can do so much better, and yet we continue to fail to do so. That, to me, is unconscionable. Too many of us look away and would prefer not to think about it. I understand why. It is the heaviest burden.
True justice for people like Mr. Chasse demands moving beyond mere ADA compliance. We need to embrace a human-centered approach to disability in jails and in their interactions with the police. That must root itself in the lived experiences of disabled people. Only by rethinking how America uses its jails and supports its most vulnerable populations can we truly achieve community safety and justice for all. I’m afraid to tell you I’m not holding my breath, but this issue matters more to me than it ever has, these days, and I won’t stop fighting on it. It’s a last breath issue, as far as I’m concerned.
