(Jan. 4, 2016) A year-long investigation into Pennsylvania’s broken mental health system culminated last week when PennLive published the final installment in their revelatory series “From Patients to Prisoners” (11 ideas to fix Pa.’s broken mental health care system, PennLive, Dec. 30).
Throughout the series, PennLive reporter Daniel Simmons-Ritchie has raised awareness about the “transformation of Pennsylvania's jails and prisons into warehouses for the mentally ill and the gaps in the state's mental health care system that has facilitated that change.”
Previous articles in the series highlighted the difficulties that people with mental illnesses face in getting help in Pennsylvania and how, without that help, they too often end up committing petty offenses that lead them to arrest and incarceration.
Now, in the series finale, the focus shifts from raising awareness to encouraging action.
“We wanted to do something different for this story,” said Simmons-Ritchie. “We created an interactive that lists potential ways Pennsylvania could improve its mental health care system.”
PennLive presents 11 potential solutions to the criminalization of mental illness - from increasing state hospital beds to implementing assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) – and asks readers to vote for the policies they support.
VOICE YOUR SUPPORT
At the end of the article you can type in your name and your zip code and an email will automatically be sent to your state representatives, urging them to advocate for proposed solutions.
The following are some of the proposed solutions that the Treatment Advocacy Center supports:
- Commission report on state hospital beds - Assess how many psychiatric inpatient beds Pennsylvania needs.
- Broaden involuntary commitment criteria - Broaden commitment criteria to make it easier to involuntarily commit seriously mentally ill people.
- Expand assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) - Legally mandate certain at-risk mentally ill people to get treatment while living in the community.
- Restore community mental health programs - Restore funding for community mental health services to pre-2012 levels.
- Expand mental health courts - Provide incentives for counties to establish mental health courts.
- Increase state hospital beds - Expand Pennsylvania’s psychiatric inpatient hospital beds.
Pennsylvania residents: Please make sure to vote for policies that would help people with severe mental illness TODAY!
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