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Sunday, July 08, 2007
Ind. Law - Indiana and criminalizing mental illness
Julie Creek writes the "Sunday centerpiece" today in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. A sample from the lengthy article:
“In Fort Wayne, the largest mental institution is the Allen County Jail,” said Kathy Bayes, executive director of NAMI, an advocacy and support group for people with mental illness.Some mentally ill inmates are accused of violent felonies, but many got arrested, at least initially, for using alcohol or drugs to control their symptoms. Others are charged for disturbances they created during mental health crises.
The presence of so many mentally ill inmates in jail raises troubling questions: If police wouldn’t charge a motorist whose car hit a tree after he suffered a heart attack; why charge someone for a non-violent act triggered by a biologically based brain disease?
Across the country, millions of people with serious mental illnesses – the overwhelming majority of whom have committed non-violent offenses – land in a criminal-justice system that isn’t equipped to deal with their problems. And the community mental health centers created to treat the mentally ill struggle to get by on limited resources that Congress may soon restrict even further, all at a time when more effective medications are helping those who get treatment to lead healthy, productive lives.
So why would federal and state officials pour billions into building new prisons to warehouse 2.2 million inmates – up to half of whom are mentally ill – rather than adequately finance community mental health centers?
The loss in human potential and the cost in human suffering are staggering.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 8, 2007 01:49 PM
Posted to Indiana Law