(June 17, 2015) U.S. Senator Al Franken and Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek assembled among others at a meeting last week to discuss ways to keep those with mental illness out of Minnesota jails (“Franken, Stanek: Inmates with mental illness are ‘society’s dirty little secret,” Star Tribune, June 12).
Senator Franken recently sponsored legislation aimed at increasing funding and collaboration among state criminal justice and mental health programs in order to divert non-violent offenders with mental illness away from the penal system and into treatment.
“This is about saving people’s lives,” said Franken. “This is about giving police the training to recognize when they’re entering a situation that involves a mental health situation.”
The bill, known as “The Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act of 2015,” would award grants to correctional facilities to identify inmates with mental illness and provide psychiatric treatment, fund training of law enforcement to identify and respond to incidents involving such inmates, and support the development of post-release transition plans.
A big supporter of the bill, Sheriff Stanek has estimated that one-third of the near 40,000 inmates who enter the Hennepin County jail each year need psychiatric treatment.
“I think quite honestly it’s society’s dirty little secret,” Stanek said. “We’ve criminalized those who suffer from mental illness. They end up in jail, stay in jail and recycle through the jail.”
At least 36 prisoners have committed suicide in Minnesota’s county jails since 2000, according to a Star Tribune investigation. Inmates with mental illness are sometimes held for months without adequate psychiatric treatment as they await competency evaluations and sentencing.
These troubling statistics echo those found in a recent Treatment Advocacy Center report on the treatment of persons with mental illness behind bars, which estimates that “there are now 10 times more individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails than there are in state mental hospitals.”
We must shed light on this “dirty little secret” and do more to help those with the most severe mental illnesses access the care they need. Legislation like Sen. Franken’s is a good step to this end.
(Photo: Sarah/Flickr)
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