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April 06, 2009
OH: Mental health care burdens prisons
Mental health care burdens prisons
By Lou Grieco
Staff Writer
Monday, April 06, 2009
DAYTON — Ohio prisons projected spending $64 million on inmates' mental health care in 2006 — or $8.7 million more than prison officials planned to spend on meals.
Instead, mental health costs reached $68.4 million. Last year, they climbed to $70.2 million.
"Prison has become a de facto mental health hospital," Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton said Thursday, April 2, at the University of Dayton.
Stratton was at UD to talk to a senior seminar of criminal justice students about mental health courts, which deal with treating and rehabilitating mentally ill offenders.
Ohio leads the nation in the number of courts that have mental health dockets, and should have more than 40 by the end of this year, Stratton said.
Dayton Municipal Court started one in 2003, and county officials are trying to expand that program countywide. Fairborn Municipal Court also has one, and Miami County Municipal Court started one last month.
The mentally ill often are arrested repeatedly for misdemeanors, such as public intoxication or trespassing, but don't get treatment they need to stay out of the system. Some stop taking their medications and become violent. Many complicate their problems by self-medicating with drugs or alcohol.
Mental health docketers are designed to get these people intense, supervised probation, which includes psychiatric help, medication, drug testing if needed, as well as regular court appearances. Proponents say it's tougher than regular probation.
Stratton, who was introduced by former Gov. Bob Taft, said the escalating prison populations and costs, coupled with the state's budget problems, are forcing officials to look at different ways to handle crime issues. She noted that she was nicknamed the "Velvet Hammer" when she was a prosecutor.
"I have never been accused of being soft on crime," she said.
Stratton also talked about the need for crisis intervention training for police officers. She said a Broward County, Fla., study showed that on 25 percent of all calls, the police arrested the mentally ill person on charges of resisting arrest or assaulting a police officer, instead of charges dealing with the original incident.
Those types of arrests can be avoided with proper training, and mental health dockets can turn troubled people into productive taxpayers who work and are reunited with their families, she said.
"It makes pure economic sense," Stratton said.
ttp://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2009/04/06/ddn040609stratton.html
Posted by lois at April 6, 2009 09:42 AM