What is Jail Psychologist?
I started Jail Psychologist in 2025 in response to the dramatic rise in rates of depression in the United States. Rates of depression in the US have more than tripled since 2000. The reason for this, as the articles and videos on this site demonstrate, is the extremely high level of wealth concentration (sometimes referred to as wealth inequality or income inequality) in this country. At the time of writing, the top 10% of US households control 70% of the country’s wealth. There are other factors, but this is the most important one to understand.
It may seem strange to connect these two variables. I get that. I promise that this will make sense if you take the time to examine the pathways by which concentrated wealth, rather than trickling down, strangles the economic lives of middle and working-class people. This concentration drives living standards down, which in turn, causes mental illness (primarily depression and anxiety, but psychosis as well).
It is my hope that by educating people about this connection, they will understand the paramount importance of changing US tax and economic policies. If we continue to pretend extreme levels of wealth don’t impact living standards for ordinary people, then our children (if we can afford to have them) will have harder lives than we did, and their children will have harder lives still.
Once you start pulling on this thread, you won’t be able to look at economics or your own financial situation without thinking about how it impacts mental health. Once you’ve got the economics part figured out, you can move on to learning about other topics that impact jail mental health. I will try to push new content every week or two.
How Does Jail Psychologist Help?
This website provides free education (with no advertising or paywalls) on mental health, public policy, and criminal justice. You will find a mix of academic arguments complete with citations and links, and straightforward commentary based on a career spent working with individuals with serious mental illness in a correctional setting.
Who Runs This Website? What Are His Credentials?
My name is Will. I am a licensed clinical psychologist. For my undergraduate studies I did a double-major in criminal justice and psychology with a minor in forensic psychology. I received my Master’s degree in Counseling, and my Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. I have been working in mental health since 2009.
I have worked in about every type of mental health setting that exists from outpatient counseling to residential programs and inpatient psychiatric hospitals. I spent some time as the clinical director for a residential treatment facility. I have been giving presentations on the social determinants of mental health for the last 10 years. Social determinants, if you are unfamiliar with the concept, are basically the ways that our economic-cultural-political system influences the development of mental illness. Even more simply put, it’s how our society causes people to become mentally ill.
More importantly for the purpose of this website, I have been the director of mental health for a large jail for the last 8 years. In that time, I have seen hundreds of patients of all levels of acuity and pretty much every diagnosis you can think of. I have worked with the department of justice, the FBI, police from numerous jurisdictions, more than a dozen different judges on cases involving mental health issues, written over 100 mental health evaluations, completed competence evaluations for the courts, and testified on numerous occasions.
I am also connected with several other programs and initiatives that relate to the intersection of mental health and criminal justice. These include mental health courts, assisted outpatient treatment (otherwise known as outpatient civil commitment), the justice reinvestment advisory committee (JRAC), and a few other coalitions. I was also certified as a correctional health professional through the national commission on correctional healthcare (NCCHC).
Disclaimers
This website is intended for educational purposes only. I am not an attorney, and nothing you read here should be construed as legal advice. I am a licensed psychologist. However, nothing you read on this website or any associated multimedia content constitutes therapeutic advice, and we do not have a therapeutic relationship. I am not taking new therapy clients. If you are having a mental health emergency, dial 9-8-8.
The opinions I express are my own as a private citizen, and they do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of my employer. Mental health treatment is nuanced, and the way that I recommend handling “most situations” does not imply that every situation should be handled that way.
Many jails nationwide are short-staffed and/or under-resourced. I may give advice on how best to navigate a situation in which your jail is short on staff/money/resources or experiencing some other sort of hardship. This does not mean that I endorse or encourage jails to operate without sufficient staff and resources. I am merely acknowledging the reality that many jurisdictions face and trying to help make the best of a bad situation.
Finally, this website is not for-profit. You will not see any advertisements here. Any Jail Psychologist videos you find on YouTube will not have any advertisements other than the ones YouTube puts up. I do not accept donations. If you want to give money, please donate to your local mental health facility, your local township trustee or homeless shelter, or the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
This website is politically neutral. That is, no political parties or candidates will be endorsed. That said, I like to think of our mental health and criminal justice systems like a car. If there is a problem with one part, then that part needs to be repaired or removed. It doesn’t matter to me whether the person driving the car prefers to wear red or blue. It is impossible to improve our mental health system without criticizing some of our current methods and policies. No offense is intended.
Time permitting, I am willing to answer questions via email at jailpsychologist@gmail.com.
