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More Jails Are Housing Mentally Ill

Posted on: Thursday, 21 July 2005, 03:01 CDT

HONOLULU - Georgia is not the only state closing mental health facilities and forcing local communities - and taxpayers - to pick up the tab as an increasing number of the mentally ill end up behind bars in county jails.

It's a national epidemic, experts at the National Association of Counties meeting said during the third day of the lobbyist organization's conference.

Now a new problem has emerged: The loss of Medicare and Medicaid benefits for those who are jailed but not yet convicted.

"This is terribly discriminatory to low-income people. If you don't have $50 to bail yourself out, you're going to jail, and you're going to lose your benefits," said Ron Wiborg, a contracts and grants manager with Hennepin County, Minn.

Those who lose their benefits, even before they're convicted of a crime, end up putting a greater burden on counties because it sometimes take 90 days to get benefits reinstated.

THAT'S AN ESPECIALLY troublesome situation in Georgia, where state lawmakers continue to make cuts in mental health services. Recently, the youth treatment wing of Georgia Regional Hospital was closed, forcing treatment of young people to be consolidated into a group housing system that has yet to fully emerge.

Meanwhile, county jails have witnessed a spike in the number of mentally ill individuals they are housing.

"Probably 70 percent of our inmates are on some type of medication," said Richmond County Jail Administrator Charles Toole, who estimates his county is paying $3.5 million for psychotropic drugs and psychiatrists. "Nobody wants to deal with them anymore, so jails and prisons wind up with them.

"We're actually warehousing these people."

In Chatham County, taxpayers dedicate $4.1 million to a medical services contract, with more than $1 million funding psychotropic drugs, said the jail administrator, Col. MacArthur Holmes.

And that's considered a bargain for a county that has signed a full catastrophic claims contract with a health services provider.

"We're the largest mental health provider in the county," said Col. Holmes, who estimates an average of 230 inmates a day require some sort of mental health service.

AT THE meeting in Honolulu, commissioners learned the organization is able to provide grants through the Eli Lilly Co. to fund diversion programs, aimed at reducing the number of mentally ill who end up in jail.

During a workshop, Miami-Dade County (Fla.) Commissioner Natacha Seijas said her community used diversion methods to reduce the number of repeat offenders among the mentally ill from 70 percent to 18 percent.

Taxpayers there agreed to a $28 million bond referendum to create a mental health detention center.

"It may not be popular," she said. "The mentally ill don't vote, they probably don't care how you're trying to help them, but they're human beings, and we need to take care of them because they're our constituents."

LINDA BOYD, a program manager for the Office of Mental Health in Los Angeles County, said her community has created psychiatric mobile response teams by teaming psychiatrists with police officers to handle everyday service calls.

Together, they respond to incidents involving the mentally ill. Rather than immediately detain the mentally ill, they take the time to ensure those who could end up in jail are offered treatment alternatives.

Beyond that, psychiatrists are able to help police officers de- escalate violent situations, respond to suicide calls and serve as a role model for police officers on how to communicate with those who might be mentally ill.

That's required a bridging of cultural gaps. While police officers often want to resolve a service call on the spot, the psychiatrists who accompany them are able to ensure medications are being taken and treatment is being issued.

That, ultimately, reduces the amount of mentally ill people in county jails, Ms. Boyd said.

Commissioners also learned about the creation of mental health courts. The focus is put on providing treatment to address the problem rather than issuing jail time.

"We have to turn our attention to intervention," said Chatham County Commissioner Priscilla Thomas.

Commissioner Pat Farrell agreed and said Georgia lawmakers have left counties "holding the bag" while services continue to be cut across the state.

"It's up to all citizens in this state to put the pressure on their state representatives to do something about this," he said.

SUNDAY SAW the official start of the conference, which brought 3,000 county officials to the Hawaii Convention Center for workshops, exhibits and an evening luau with free food and native dancers. The event was sponsored by the Honolulu City Council.

Augusta and Georgia commissioners have so far been some of the few attending pre-conference events. They are also facing greater media scrutiny than most county officials during the taxpayer- funded trip.

In Augusta, commissioners are being observed now by two local TV stations and a reporter.

Source: Augusta Chronicle, The

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