RBP
06-10-2015, 03:52 AM
http://i.imgur.com/2NcJTqr.jpg?1
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/americas-largest-mental-hospital-is-a-jail/395012/
A few excerpts below. It's a great article, and worth the read. I am going to make a push to try and work as part of this mental health team. Hardly anyone wants to work there, but it's an amazing chance to make a difference.
==========
At Cook County Jail, an estimated one in three inmates has some form of mental illness. At least 400,000 inmates currently behind bars in the United States suffer from some type of mental illness—a population larger than the cities of Cleveland, New Orleans, or St. Louis—according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI estimates that between 25 and 40 percent of all mentally ill Americans will be jailed or incarcerated at some point in their lives.
“This is typically what I see everyday,” said Elli Petacque-Montgomery, a psychologist and the deputy director of mental health policy for the sheriff’s department. She showed me a medical intake form filled with blue pen scribbles. Small boxes listed possible illnesses: manic depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, and so on. The forms are designed to help jail officials identify which inmates have mental illnesses as early as possible. Details from four new inmates could fit on a single sheet. She showed me a completed one. “Of those four,” she said, pointing to the descriptors, “I have three mentally ill people.”
==========
What sort of crimes had these people been arrested for? One kid on the list had a tendency toward aggression, but officials emphasized that the overwhelming majority were “crimes of survival” such as retail theft (to find food or supplies) or breaking and entering (to find a place to sleep). For those with mental illness, charges of drug possession can often indicate attempts at self-medication. “Even the drugs of choice will connect to what the mental illness is,” Petacque-Montgomery told me. People with severe depression might use cocaine “to lift their mood.” Those who hear voices and have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder often turn to heroin to regulate their sleep. Marijuana use “is just constant for kids with ADD and depression,” she notes. “I’ll ask, ‘Can you eat or sleep without this?’ and they’ll say no.’”
Chicagoans with mental illness end up in jail through a chain of small decisions by different local officials. Police officers can choose to take a mentally ill person home, to the hospital, to a shelter—or to jail. Prosecutors can choose whether or not to not bring charges. Judges can choose to set higher or lower bail amounts, thereby determining whether poorer defendants can avoid pre-trial detention and keep their jobs and housing. But once a person reaches the jail, the local sheriff can’t simply decline to take them into custody.
==========
Last month, Dart appointed Nneka Jones Tapia, a clinical psychologist who previously oversaw mental health care at Cook County Jail, as executive director of the facility. Jones Tapia is currently the only mental health professional in charge of a major jail in the United States. Her appointment underscores how much of the jail’s work is devoted to treating people with significant mental illnesses.
In most jurisdictions, the recently arrested are brought to local holding cells for fingerprinting and charges, then taken to the county jail for processing and a bond hearing. Cook County is no different—except for its mental-health screening. “What I did is, I put this new layer in between, so when they get dropped off before they go to the bond hearing, we interview them and we try to find some sort of alternatives for them to suggest to the judge,” Dart explained.
How did the judiciary respond, I asked? He shrugged. “They haven’t.” Dart has spent most of his career as part of the criminal justice system in some way. He previously worked in the state attorney’s office as a prosecutor until 1991, when he spent 11 years in the Illinois state legislature. “I’m not invited to a lot of their parties, let’s put it that way,” he said about the judges, cracking a grin.
==========
Cook County Jail itself is a sprawling complex covering some 96 acres in the South Lawndale neighborhood. Inmate populations fluctuate with the seasons, but between 9,000 and 11,000 people are housed in 11 separate divisions on average. Dart also supervises roughly 2,000 people who are released on electronic monitoring. In addition to the jail itself, the complex also connects to the county’s criminal courts. The facility processes about 100,000 people through it each year.
“If you have someone diagnosed with a mental illness, can you think of a worse place to put them than a jail?” Dart asked me. “The living units we put them in change some of that dynamic—these wide-open dormitory settings—but traditionally around the county, you find they’ll be tossed in four-by-eight [foot] jail cells. I mean, can you think, if you were mentally ill, how that must feel? In addition to whatever else you’re having problems with, being locked in that cement four-by-eight room with a stranger, usually who has some other illness that has nothing to do with yours?”
==========
Cook County Jail is clearly on the better end of a grim spectrum when it comes to mental-health services in jails. After their group therapy session ended at the treatment center, I spoke with five of the inmates about what they thought of the new re-entry program. All of them were soft-spoken, and deferential. We sat in a small circle at the center of the space. The guards left the room and a representative from the public defender’s office stood off to the side near the door.
Had any of them come across any therapy regimens or educational courses similar to this one before, I asked?
“No, I haven’t,” replied Marcus in a ponderous, gravelly voice. “I’ve been using drugs and coming in and out of the system for the last 30 years and I never received a break from no judge. I’ve always been sent right back to the penitentiary and I ain’t learned nothing.”
All of them were enthusiastic about the therapy regimen. “Oh man, there’s just so many words I’ve got to say about this program,” said Jermaine, sighing and leaning back in his chair before bolting back up and focusing intently on me. “Instead of sitting in bed all day, I get to come over here and talk to guys that’s just tired of this life. Being chosen, y’know, kind of hand-picked for this, it’s something that each individual should be beyond happy for.” They even seemed comfortable having guards participate in the therapy sessions. “[The guards] all feel that this is not a wasted opportunity or a waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Marcus.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/americas-largest-mental-hospital-is-a-jail/395012/
A few excerpts below. It's a great article, and worth the read. I am going to make a push to try and work as part of this mental health team. Hardly anyone wants to work there, but it's an amazing chance to make a difference.
==========
At Cook County Jail, an estimated one in three inmates has some form of mental illness. At least 400,000 inmates currently behind bars in the United States suffer from some type of mental illness—a population larger than the cities of Cleveland, New Orleans, or St. Louis—according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI estimates that between 25 and 40 percent of all mentally ill Americans will be jailed or incarcerated at some point in their lives.
“This is typically what I see everyday,” said Elli Petacque-Montgomery, a psychologist and the deputy director of mental health policy for the sheriff’s department. She showed me a medical intake form filled with blue pen scribbles. Small boxes listed possible illnesses: manic depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, and so on. The forms are designed to help jail officials identify which inmates have mental illnesses as early as possible. Details from four new inmates could fit on a single sheet. She showed me a completed one. “Of those four,” she said, pointing to the descriptors, “I have three mentally ill people.”
==========
What sort of crimes had these people been arrested for? One kid on the list had a tendency toward aggression, but officials emphasized that the overwhelming majority were “crimes of survival” such as retail theft (to find food or supplies) or breaking and entering (to find a place to sleep). For those with mental illness, charges of drug possession can often indicate attempts at self-medication. “Even the drugs of choice will connect to what the mental illness is,” Petacque-Montgomery told me. People with severe depression might use cocaine “to lift their mood.” Those who hear voices and have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder often turn to heroin to regulate their sleep. Marijuana use “is just constant for kids with ADD and depression,” she notes. “I’ll ask, ‘Can you eat or sleep without this?’ and they’ll say no.’”
Chicagoans with mental illness end up in jail through a chain of small decisions by different local officials. Police officers can choose to take a mentally ill person home, to the hospital, to a shelter—or to jail. Prosecutors can choose whether or not to not bring charges. Judges can choose to set higher or lower bail amounts, thereby determining whether poorer defendants can avoid pre-trial detention and keep their jobs and housing. But once a person reaches the jail, the local sheriff can’t simply decline to take them into custody.
==========
Last month, Dart appointed Nneka Jones Tapia, a clinical psychologist who previously oversaw mental health care at Cook County Jail, as executive director of the facility. Jones Tapia is currently the only mental health professional in charge of a major jail in the United States. Her appointment underscores how much of the jail’s work is devoted to treating people with significant mental illnesses.
In most jurisdictions, the recently arrested are brought to local holding cells for fingerprinting and charges, then taken to the county jail for processing and a bond hearing. Cook County is no different—except for its mental-health screening. “What I did is, I put this new layer in between, so when they get dropped off before they go to the bond hearing, we interview them and we try to find some sort of alternatives for them to suggest to the judge,” Dart explained.
How did the judiciary respond, I asked? He shrugged. “They haven’t.” Dart has spent most of his career as part of the criminal justice system in some way. He previously worked in the state attorney’s office as a prosecutor until 1991, when he spent 11 years in the Illinois state legislature. “I’m not invited to a lot of their parties, let’s put it that way,” he said about the judges, cracking a grin.
==========
Cook County Jail itself is a sprawling complex covering some 96 acres in the South Lawndale neighborhood. Inmate populations fluctuate with the seasons, but between 9,000 and 11,000 people are housed in 11 separate divisions on average. Dart also supervises roughly 2,000 people who are released on electronic monitoring. In addition to the jail itself, the complex also connects to the county’s criminal courts. The facility processes about 100,000 people through it each year.
“If you have someone diagnosed with a mental illness, can you think of a worse place to put them than a jail?” Dart asked me. “The living units we put them in change some of that dynamic—these wide-open dormitory settings—but traditionally around the county, you find they’ll be tossed in four-by-eight [foot] jail cells. I mean, can you think, if you were mentally ill, how that must feel? In addition to whatever else you’re having problems with, being locked in that cement four-by-eight room with a stranger, usually who has some other illness that has nothing to do with yours?”
==========
Cook County Jail is clearly on the better end of a grim spectrum when it comes to mental-health services in jails. After their group therapy session ended at the treatment center, I spoke with five of the inmates about what they thought of the new re-entry program. All of them were soft-spoken, and deferential. We sat in a small circle at the center of the space. The guards left the room and a representative from the public defender’s office stood off to the side near the door.
Had any of them come across any therapy regimens or educational courses similar to this one before, I asked?
“No, I haven’t,” replied Marcus in a ponderous, gravelly voice. “I’ve been using drugs and coming in and out of the system for the last 30 years and I never received a break from no judge. I’ve always been sent right back to the penitentiary and I ain’t learned nothing.”
All of them were enthusiastic about the therapy regimen. “Oh man, there’s just so many words I’ve got to say about this program,” said Jermaine, sighing and leaning back in his chair before bolting back up and focusing intently on me. “Instead of sitting in bed all day, I get to come over here and talk to guys that’s just tired of this life. Being chosen, y’know, kind of hand-picked for this, it’s something that each individual should be beyond happy for.” They even seemed comfortable having guards participate in the therapy sessions. “[The guards] all feel that this is not a wasted opportunity or a waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Marcus.