Criminal Justice
Jail Often the Only Option for Mental Health Treatment
Posted Jul 21, 2008, 01:23 pm CST
By Martha Neil
It costs more to treat the mentally ill in jail than in a hospital setting. But jail offers the only treatment alternative for many, due to a lack of psychiatric hospitals.
So some inmates actually welcome the opportunity to return to jail and get needed treatment, reports the Houston Chronicle. Among them is Patricia George, 34, who suffers from schizophrenia and is bipolar.
Charged with 12 felonies and 31 misdemeanors in 20 years, she has spent nine years in jail. She says her thinking is clearer when she returns to jail and gets medicated. When released, she is expected, without a car or money, to locate mental health providers and get counseling and needed prescription medications on her own. Unmedicated, she hears voices.
The mental health facility at Harris County Jail is one of the biggest in the state. But the money could be better spent elsewhere, says Chief Deputy Mike Smith of the county sheriff's office.
"We shouldn't be treating our mentally ill in the jails," he says. "We should be treating them in the free world."
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Posted by Caroline S. Zoes - 4 months, 1 week, 3 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes ago
This is happening throughout Illinois. Insuance companies do not want to cover mental health treatment or only provide limited coverage. The state is not paying their medicaid bills which cover hospital services/mental facilities. People go without medications, no homes, no job, and then end up in the legal system. I have been told that in some European countries they allow the medical profession to take care of the mentally ill. They are kept out of the legal system. By not providing these services, mentally ill people lack the opportunity to be helped or to be closely monitored. Perhaps a program such as San Francisco’s Delancy Street Foundation ought to be available in each Illinois County.