(Aug. 20, 2015) While New Orleans has been caught in the weeds over whether or not to expand [the Orleans Parish Prison] the tide is turning in the rest of the country.
Proposed bipartisan legislation in Congress — House Resolution 2646, "The Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act," and the Mental Health Reform Act of 2015 — reflect a paradigm shift in thinking at the federal level. They move federal dollars into treating people with mental illness rather than punishing them for their illness.
There is also the "Stepping Up Initiative," a call to action that brings legislators, judges and law enforcement agencies together to divert people with mental illnesses from jails back to the community.
Communities have been spending millions to expand their jails and prisons designed for inmates with severe physical and mental health problems, but creating "better" jails is not the solution. Getting arrested should not be the first step in getting treatment. Some may claim that jails are the entryway into the continuum of care. But we cannot allow ourselves to believe that providing treatment to sick people in jails is normal or equivalent to care.
There is a lack of facilities and services for those who suffer from mental health disorders. Improving and broadening community-based health care services is where we need to focus our efforts. Building bigger jails reduces incentives for reforms. Instead we should consider "one-stop shops" like the Restoration Center in San Antonio, which is a national model.
Rather than funding expanded prisons…we need more treatment and recovery programs, access to affordable medications, acute and long-term hospital beds, decent housing, peer-to-peer support, therapy, jobs and assertive community access teams.
We need to turn mental illness back into a health issue where doctors take the lead rather than continuing to make it a criminal justice problem.
With all the 21st century advancements that offer solutions to meeting the needs of those afflicted with brain diseases, if we fail to rise to the challenge of mental health care reform, we will continue to live in the dark ages that offer no other solutions for our loved ones outside of incarceration, homelessness and death.
JANET HAYS
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
(Photo: Chris Granger/ The Times-Picayune)
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