What would happen if?....

We lived in a world in which we recognized and dealt with mental illness prior to it becoming a crisis?  In particular, what would be possible if those living with mental illness could get treatment before their problems came to the attention of law enforcement?  Maybe we would see a decrease in crime.  Maybe there would be fewer victims.  Maybe there could be lower costs for our criminal justice system and incarceration.  What a concept!  Here is an article that discusses that very topic: http://bit.ly/12iXSoY  As you will notice as you look at the article, it is ‘grading’ our approach to diverting those with mental illness away from the criminal justice system.  The most interesting point made is that fewer than half of us live in communities in which any attention is paid to diverting the mentally ill from the criminal justice system into mental health treatment.  As a matter of fact, they give a D or an F to states in this nation that don’t utilize diversionary programs.  And they say that at least one third of our states don’t do any work towards diverting the seriously and chronically mentally ill from jail or prison.

These are sad statistics.  It means that we are ignoring our responsibility to make our communities safer for the mentally ill and for the average citizen as well.  What do we accomplish when we warehouse?  We keep one person off the street for a period of time.  But we don’t do much with that approach.  We certainly don’t teach a person how to function.  We allow human beings to flounder instead of giving them the opportunity to grow into recovery. When we create the opportunity for an individual to move forward into recovery, we are creating a possibility for that person to become productive and contribute.  It seems obvious to me which is a better approach.  What do you think?

Here are the suggestions that the article makes for tactics to divert people from the criminal justice system:  First of all, they recommend the use of mental health courts.  I think that is a very sound suggestion.  If there is a court that is created to look at the specialized issues and approaches likely to work with the mentally ill, it would likely be considerably more successful.  Those trained to work with the mentally ill know how to navigate the sometimes complicated collection of symptoms exhibited by the mentally ill.  And perhaps they won’t be as tempted to respond in non- therapeutic ways.  They will also be more aware of appropriate treatment approaches and resources.  The second suggestion is the use of law enforcement crisis intervention teams, sometimes called CIT teams.  These are specially trained officers that are sent out on calls involving individuals with mental illness.  It’s a great idea to send out officers to deal with the mentally ill that have the education and training to actually help.

So what did I learn about mental illness from reading this article?  I learned that there are people out there thinking creatively about options that are more humane for dealing with the mentally ill in the criminal justice system.  I also learned (again) that we don’t always use our knowledge to improve our systems. Maybe it’s time for us to have a discussion about how our community can move forward in treating the mentally ill.  Let me know what you think