New Documentary Exploring Mental Illness After Prison Debuts on FRONTLINE

Five years ago, the film The New Asylums went deep inside the Ohio prison system as it struggled to provide care to thousands of incarcerated people suffering from mental illness. This year, filmmakers Karen O'Connor and Miri Navasky return to Ohio to tell the next chapter of the story: what happens to people suffering with mental illness when they leave prison. The Released, airing on Tuesday, April 28, at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), is an intimate look at the lives of the seriously mentally ill as they struggle to remain free.

As communities across the country face the largest exodus of people from prison in history, the issue has never been more pressing. This year alone, over 700,000 people will leave prison, more than half of them with a mental illness. Typically, these people leave prison with a bus ticket, $75 in cash, and two weeks' worth of medication. Studies show that within 18 months, nearly two-thirds of people leaving prison with a mental illness—often poor and cut off from friends and family—are re-arrested. The intimate stories of the released—along with interviews with parole officers, social workers and psychiatrists—provide a rare look at the lives of the mentally ill as they struggle to stay out of prison and make a life in society.

The Released is a FRONTLINE co-production with Mead Street Films, and was produced, written, and directed by Miri Navasky and Karen O'Connor. The project received funding from the Open Society Institute, along with The Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation.