The story was heartwarming and horrifying. First the horror.

A 73-year-old Keene woman who was no longer aware of her surroundings or capable of caring for her most basic needs recently spent six weeks as a prisoner in the Cheshire County Jail. Her crime: pushing her elderly husband because she thought he was withholding her meds.

The imprisonment, which was reported by Ian Bagely of The Keene Sentinel, should never have happened. The elderly and mentally ill do not belong in jails, which are not set up to care for them. But jails, in New Hampshire and nationally, have become a dumping ground for them because society has failed to pay for more appropriate ways to care for them.

At any given time, more than 16 percent of the nation's county jail inmates are mentally ill, according to the federal Bureau of Justice. While incarcerated, they get worse. Their problems grow more expensive to treat, and their adaptation to society on release is made more difficult.

Jailing the mentally ill and elderly also hurts state and local taxpayers. Patients in mental hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities are, if poor, eligible for Medicaid, which means the federal government pays half the bill. Prisoners are not eligible for Medicaid, and even a brief stay in jail can end benefits that take months to win back. In New Hampshire, that leaves local property taxpayers stuck with the cost of their care.

The state Department of Health and Human Services is working with counties to find a better way to deal with the problem. It will need to work with the criminal justice system to find alternatives to arrest and incarceration.

In the Keene case, the woman couldn't be sent home but she couldn't be released on her own recognizance without being a danger to herself and possibly others. The jail spent six weeks trying to find an appropriate placement for her. She failed to meet admissions criteria at several social service agencies. Eventually, the woman was admitted to the county nursing home, which is probably where she belonged in the first place.

Now for the heartwarming part of the tale.

Cheshire County's jail has 98 female inmates in a space meant for 47, and the cell doors don't lock. The disoriented woman was incapable of feeding herself or walking without assistance, and she needed protection from aggressive inmates. "Half the time, she didn't know where she was," one 17-year-old inmate said.

Between eight and 10 inmates, most of them jailed for drug possession or a crime like forgery committed to get drugs, cared for the woman. She was never left alone. They walked her, in tiny six-inch steps, to the cafeteria, an inmate on each arm. An inmate who was a licensed nurse oversaw her care. Inmates helped her eat, comforted her, and bathed and changed her when she soiled her clothes. They defended her and lost privileges for yelling at guards when the woman was left in the shower naked for half an hour before clean clothes arrived.

It is easy to stereotype prisoners and write them off as society's losers, but as the actions of the Keene inmates proved, kindness can be found anywhere, even in people who have made some big mistakes.

Monitor editorial