The 2019 Mississippi general election is less than three weeks away and politicians are talking about a plethora of issues, but there no serious discussion of one of the state’s entrenched and shameful realities – the banishment of far too many of the state’s mentally ill to jail cells.
A 2017 Treatment Advocacy Center report revealed: “In 2016, nearly 400,000 inmates in U.S. jails and prisons were estimated to have a mental health condition. Of those inmates, an estimated 90,000 were defendants who had been arrested and jailed but had not come to trial because they were too disordered to understand the charges on which they were detained.”
Over the course of 2016 and 2017, Mississippi lawmakers cut a total of $18.3 million from the State Department of Mental Health. But the problem is more pronounced than that in Mississippi. Over the four decades I’ve covered news in the state, Mississippi jails mental patients in many cases for little more than getting off their meds or simply for the “crime” of being mentally ill. The state’s history in terms of providing treatment beds for the mentally ill to assist them in avoiding the dangerous and inhumane practice of jailing them has been checkered at best.
Without treatment beds, jail is the alternative.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans can claim any political high ground on this issue. Leaders in both parties have failed to substantially address the issue. Since the GOP is in power in state government now, what little discussion we’ve had about mental health issues in the 2019 campaign has centered on GOP budget cuts. Blaming Republicans for neglect of the mentally ill in the state defies both logic and history. Bo parties share responsibility.
In 1999, when Democrats ran the show in the Legislature and in the Governor’s Mansion. the Legislature issued $20 million in bonds to build seven mental health crisis centers.
The first center opened in Corinth in 2001 and for a time had all 16 beds available for use. But five other centers in the Delta and central Mississippi, open since 2004, only had funding for eight of 16 beds available for patients. After constructing the crisis mental health centers, the Legislature failed to appropriate operating funds for the facilities until a newspaper investigation of the closed facilities was published in the spring of 2004.
Lawmakers agreed after public protest in the 2004 regular session to fund the seven centers around the state with $12.5 million, enough to run them at half capacity. Five mental health crisis centers were funded for half operations in September 2004 – Cleveland, Newton, Grenada, Laurel and Batesville.
In 2006, the Legislature provided “full funding” for the crisis centers. For another $10 million, state taxpayers built the 48-bed Specialized Treatment Facility for juvenile court-committed mental patients in Gulfport. By 2009, the state closed six of the seven crisis mental health centers before the shine was off the tile floors of the new buildings. Budget problems, he argued. The mentally ill don’t fare well at the Capitol when economic times are hard. Didn’t then, don’t now.
The relatives of wealthy, well-connected mentally ill patients won't be incarcerated in county jail cells. They'll be placed in private treatment facilities without going through the county commitment process necessary for the poor to receive state mental health hospital treatment.
But relatives of the poor and the powerless in this state are being thrown in county jails to rot until a bed space opens in one of the state mental hospitals.
One would think that the same logic that would make it seem like a good idea to lock a mentally ill person in a county jail cell would lead that same person to conclude that it's also smart to lock a skin cancer victim inside a tanning bed.
The mentally ill in Mississippi deserve better.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Sid Salter: Candidates Ignore Mentally Ill
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16 comments:
Sid overlooks the thousands in our prison system who spend time in the library learning how to fake a mental illness, low IQ or personality issue that presented itself back when they knowingly created their crime.
Is Sid the new Ron Welch as well as the new Jerry Mitchell?
I thought Sid was going to talk about the participants is last night's debate.
Andrew Yang to the audience: "Raise your hand if you notice stores closing here in Ohio." Camera pans the audience and no one has their hand raised.
One would have to be mentally ill to believe this hogwash. One in four pretrial defendants are "too disordered" to understand their charges. Either they are competent or they are not. "Too disordered" is meaningless as a legal term.
More bullshit.
I agree lots more can be done for people with mental illness but repeating lies designed to trigger responses by political hacks does nothing to help. Yes jail is no place for a mentally ill person. Getting Jim Hood or Mr. Reeves to talk about the problem does nothing.
You'd think our legislators, who believe in the same conspiracy theories as your garden variety paranoiac, wouldn't want to lock up potential supporters.
The legislature has historically ignored the problem of mental illness in Mississippi, over decades. They have refused to create an adequate system and fund it with reliable funding. This goes back for decades. However, because of federal govt and court intervention, that situation may soon be ending and the state might soon be forced to take pro-active steps in the right direction, including funding.
But a potentially bigger issue that is being completely ignored in the 2019 election by all candidates is the health of the PERS retirement system. No one is talking about that, in spite of the obvious peril that the system is in currently.
Both mental health and the retirement system are set to cost the state a ton of money over the next four years. I'd hold off on spending that lottery money if I were in charge.
Those two matters will also affect whether the ultimate winners for Lt. Gov and Gov can come through with the funding to actually keep their promises regarding education and teacher pay.
I'll give Sid credit for being consistent. He's written columns about the jailing of the mentally ill for a long, long time now.
What Sid never mentions though, like all free spending RINOs in Mississippi, is where (specifically) the additional funding can be found.
We tend to gloss over this part when we're talking about mentally ill people being in jail, but who determines whether someone is mentally ill? Certainly there are degrees of mental illness, so who determines if a person is sufficiently mentally ill that he should be in an institution? How do we know whether we have Randall P. McMurphy or Billy Bibbit in the mental hospital? There's a lot more to this than simply declaring that too many mentally ill people are in jail.
It is my opinion tha you people are all mad and that it is I alone who retains his sanity.
I thought Sid was referring to our president, his administration and his worshippers. Trump once said “I have a great relationship with the blacks.” Someone that delusional should be able to get the help they do desperately need.
Well said 8:17 AM.
Watch out Kingfisher, you keep allowing them kind of comments and they will turn on you.
But we po’. Let’s fix roads so the high earning among us can drive to their businesses make money, and pay taxes. Then if they pay enough taxes for us to have money for it we can pay for beds for people who are sad or think the light fixtures are talking to them. Yeah it would be nice to have better mental health, but let’s focus on the very basics of a civilized society where we are lacking first- roads, infrastructure, education.
Bring back James tulp columns
Nobody can do anything about the mentally ill until the Supreme Court reverses itself on the issue of whether a mentally ill person can be institutionalized against his will. Somehow, its ok to judge someone incompetent to stand trial for murder but NOT ok to make that same judgement when it comes to deciding whether or not he needs institutionalized mental health care.
8:36 am AMEN!
As for the rest of you, you can deal with the mentally ill after they have caused problems in society or try to prevent them from causing problems.
Guess which cost less?
When the state privatizes mental healthcare facilities and allows those who invest in such facilities to lobby we might find generous funding becoming available.
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