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Mentally challenged people are 16 times more prone to get killed when they are involved in police encounters, compared to other civilians who have no mental health issues, according to a new report from the Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center.

Scientists pointed out that at least one out of four fatal police encounters involves a mentally challenged patient.

"If this were any other medical condition, people would be up in arms," said John Snook, the report's co-author and executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, via USA Today. "What we need to do is treat the person before the police are ever called. This is a mental illness, but we respond by calling the police and arresting a person."

About 8 million American adults undergo mental problems, ranging from bipolar disorder to schizophrenia. The Treatment Advocacy Center points out that half of these patients do not take either medicine or receive medical care.

They should receive better treatment, say health officials, who are trying to give them better treatments in order to bring down the role of mental illness in crimes involving the police.

"By dismantling the mental illness treatment system, we have turned mental health crisis from a medical issue into a police matter," concluded Snook, according to scienceworldreport.com