Thank you for the work you do at the drop- in center and for your blogs. I read them before when you posted in another thread; I don't remember the subject of that thread.
I recently watched a program about skid row in Los Angeles, Ca. Primarily the homeless on skid row have severe mental illness and resort to self medication. They are criminalized, and I think that is the point of your thread here. I agree sometimes the mentally ill commit crimes, but they are not crimes in my opinion that need to be prosecuted. They are often committed out of desperation.
The homeless and vagrants are criminalized for loitering or "theft". Theft being of things like shopping carts and milk crates from grocery stores. It got bad around 2004 when the city of LA. went into full force in their "revitalization project" As a consequence, the mentally ill were ticketed for loitering, littering, theft etc. Police came and threw all of their belongings in dumpsters. The citations that were handed out included notices to appear and fines. Of course the people who were given the tickets didn't show up in court or pay fines. Warrants were issued and arrests were made and the county jail became a warehouse of mentally ill.
In short, these people were not given any direction as far as aftercare follow up. No resource guides for people to receive mental health services or any social services for that matter.

What I know about the state I live in now is that the MI are absolutely criminalized. When a person is decompensating, psychotic, etc. they are taken to jail and kept there. This is true even when it is established that the person already has a diagnosis and is under the care of a physician. They are treated as if it is their fault for being paranoid, delusional and hostile. It doesn't matter if a person has become unstable because of a medication issue etc. That person is not given access in jail to his/her meds or a medical person. Usually it takes days if not weeks for the person's family and attorney to be heard in court as an advocate for the one who is ill and in jail. There have been many cases here of people jailed for a mental illness issue. Many have committed suicide in jail. Montana now has the highest national suicide rate. No, when they are released they are not given any follow up care. Most of the "criminal " charges stick, so the person has to go to court and then is sentenced. Also, their names are printed in the newspaper.

I think that all states are different in their approach. Here in Mt. it is awful. I am from Ca. and I know services are much better there since 2005. I have heard positive stories from other states about social services being very involved in a mentally ill person's criminalization. In some areas these charges are dropped and a social worker is assigned and treatment plans go into effect.

Sorry this was so long.