A relatively small amount of funding for mental health care could ultimately save money and lives, according to a new cover story in Mother Jones.


"Two to three thousand dollars in treatment saves $50,000 in jail," Randall Hagar, director of government relations for the California Psychiatric Association, told Mother Jones' Mac McClelland.


Since the 1980s, federal funding for mental health care has declined precipitously, while incarceration rates have soared over the same time period.


State and local funding for mental health care follows a similar pattern.


McClelland's article tells the story of her third-cousin, Houston Herczog, and Houston's father, Mark.


Houston, who has been diagnosed by several psychologists as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, killed his father by stabbing him 60 times in November, 2011. Houston's trial started this week. Before the killing, Houston's family struggled in vain to get him help but, short of calling the police, the family had no other option, McClelland writes.


"I would love to see treatment available for people who need it," McClelland told The Huffington Post. "If you can't get treatment, you can't get better and if you can't get better, sometimes these things happen."


Some research has cast doubt on the links between mental illness and violent crime, but the connection between mental illness and those who find themselves behind bars is striking.


Research cited by Mother Jones indicates that 45 percent of federal prisoners, 56 percent of inmates in state prisons, and 64 percent of those incarcerated in local jails have mental health problems.


Mother Jones also cites several studies that show a strong relationship between violence and mental illness. One suggested that "approximately 10 percent of US homicides are committed by untreated severely mentally ill people" and another found the "chances that a perpetrator of a mass shooting displayed signs of mental illness prior to the crime" were one in two.


McClelland told HuffPost, recent budget cuts nationwide have only exacerbated the trend toward gutting mental health care programs that could ultimately save taxpayer dollars and prevent tragedies like the one her family suffered.


"In the budget crunches, mental health is always one of the first things on the chopping black," McClelland said. "There's no sign of that abating."


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  • Mourners carry ornaments to decorate the Christmas trees at one of the makeshift memorials for the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, Monday,Dec. 17, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. Authorities say gunman Adam Lanza killed his mother at their home on Friday and then opened fire inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, killing 26 people, including 20 children, before taking his own life. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)




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  • Tamara Doherty


    Shop owner Tamara Doherty, paces outside her store just down the road from Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims. (AP Photo/David Goldman)




  • Tamara Doherty, Jackie Gaudet


    Shop owners Tamara Doherty, left, and Jackie Gaudet, right, meet outside their stores for the first time since being neighbors, just down the road from Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims. (AP Photo/David Goldman)




  • Kristin Hoyt


    Kristin Hoyt, 18, of Danbury, Conn., ties a balloon to an overpass up the road from the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims. (AP Photo/David Goldman)




  • A Newtown, Conn., resident, who declined to give her name, sits at an intersection holding a sign for passing motorists up the road from the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims. (AP Photo/David Goldman)




  • A snowflake ornament with the name of 6-year-old Noah Pozner hangs on a Christmas tree at a makeshift memorial in the Sandy Hook village of Newtown, Conn., Monday, Dec. 17, 2012, as the town mourns victims killed in Friday's school shooting. Pozner, who was killed Friday when gunman Adam Lanza opened fire inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School, will be buried Monday. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)




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  • Jamie Duncan, 16, of Newtown, Conn., lights a candle at one of the makeshift memorials for the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, Monday,Dec. 17, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. Authorities say gunman Adam Lanza killed his mother at their home on Friday and then opened fire inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, killing 26 people, including 20 children, before taking his own life. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)




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  • A hearse arrives at B'nai Israel Cemetery with the body of Noah Pozner, a six-year-old killed in an elementary school shooting, during funeral services, Monday, Dec. 17, 2012, in Monroe, Conn. Authorities say gunman Adam Lanza killed his mother at their home on Friday and then opened fire inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, killing 26 people, including 20 children, before taking his own life. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)




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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


    Newtown residents Claire Swanson, Kate Suba, Jaden Albrecht, Simran Chand and New London, Connecticut residents Rachel Pullen and her son Landon DeCecco, hold candles at a memorial for victims on the first Sunday following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 16, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)




  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


    Eknoor Kaur, 3, stands with her father Guramril Singh during a candlelight vigil outside Newtown High School before an interfaith vigil with President Barack Obama, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. A gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Friday and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)




  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Emilie Alice Parker


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


    Victoria Soto, a 27-year-old teacher, was killed in the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Her cousin, Jim Wiltsie, told ABC that Soto, a teacher, died while shielding her young students from the gunman, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20121215/us-school-shooting-victims/?utm_hp_ref=homepage&ir=homepage">according to the AP.</a>




  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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    This photo posted to the Emilie Parker Fund Facebook page shows Emilie Parker. Fighting back tears and struggling to catch his breath, Robbie Parker the father of 6-year-old Emile Parker who was gunned down in Friday's school shooting in Connecticut told the world about a little girl who loved to draw and was always smiling, and he also reserved surprising words of sympathy for the gunman. (AP Photo/Emilie Parker Fund)




  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


    Shop owner Tamara Doherty paces outside her store just down the road from Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at the school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims. (AP Photo/David Goldman)




  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


    This photo posted to the Emilie Parker Fund Facebook page shows Emilie Parker and her father Robbie Parker. Fighting back tears and struggling to catch his breath, Robbie Parker the father of 6-year-old Emile Parker who was gunned down in Friday's school shooting in Connecticut told the world about a little girl who loved to draw and was always smiling, and he also reserved surprising words of sympathy for the gunman. (AP Photo/Emilie Parker Fund)




  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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  • Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


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