Here’s how jail-based health treatment failed my family: Guest commentary

As the child of a formerly incarcerated person, I’ve lived with the consequences of a failed law-enforcement system that believes jails can be places for rehabilitative treatment and care. This illusion eventually cost my dad his life.

My dad was a poor man of color raised in the smallest city in Los Angeles County. He served long sentences for drug-related crimes and parole violations. Being locked up exacerbated his existing physical and mental health issues. There were no services to greet him at the gate when he was released, and so imprisonment became law enforcement’s version of treatment. When he tried to find a job and a home, he was rejected at every turn because of his felony record.

At a meeting in Sacramento earlier this month, the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC), a small board dominated by law-enforcement officials, appointed the chairs of the committee who will recommend where to spend the millions of dollars of savings generated through Proposition 47, the law passed one year ago that reclassifies certain low-level crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Sixty five percent of this money must be allocated to diversion, mental health, and substance use treatment programs, giving California an opportunity to improve health outcomes for thousands of families.

But at that same meeting, despite testimonials from dozens of community members like myself whose lives have been harmed by incarceration, the BSCC voted to allocate $500 million in jail construction funds to counties across the state. Given that many of these new jail projects are being promoted as mental health treatment centers, sheriffs may soon be lining up to make the case for needing Prop. 47 funds to run these facilities. Awarding funds to expand jails makes no sense when national conversations have turned toward reducing jail populations.

The committee appointed by the BSCC to direct spending of Prop. 47 funds has the power to ensure that those savings go to treatment and care in the community, changing the culture surrounding substance use and mental health. This is the approach that finally worked for my dad.

When my dad was released for the last time in 2007, it was support from other formerly incarcerated people also grappling with substance-use and mental health conditions that helped him stay out of jail. He found his way to Homes for Life, a community-based organization in Southern California providing affordable housing and counseling for homeless and mentally-ill people. Living in a caring community empowered him to enroll in Long Beach City College’s Substance Abuse and Addiction Counseling degree program. It is bittersweet knowing that my dad didn’t find the resources he needed until he was 50 because society prioritizes punishment over healing.

Driving home to Southern California from Oakland this past spring, I prepared myself to see my dad for the first time in 20 years. It would also be the last time. I wept reflecting on 20 years of lost opportunities for our family because a poor brown man’s health conditions made him a criminal.

The real crime is the failure of law enforcement to know the difference between health care and incarceration. There is no happy ending to our story. My dad died without realizing his capacity to be a father and contribute to his community. I only find solace knowing he left this world trying to be the best person he could be.

My dad’s story is not exceptional. Families and neighborhoods continue to be torn apart by the same system that claims keeping communities safe means building more cages for people, when what they really need is comprehensive health care not administered by law enforcement.

Instead of accepting money for new jails, counties should reject the funding and give people with mental health and substance use conditions what my dad didn’t get: a fair chance at health, and a fair chance at life.

Angela Aguilar is a masters in public health candidate and a doctoral student in ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Via: http://www.dailynews.com/opinion/20151124/heres-how-jail-based-health-treatment-failed-my-family-guest-commentary

Rally to Stop the Jail Expansion in Riverside County!

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Law Enforcement, Health Advocates, and Members of Congress Push to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jails

WASHINGTON, DC—Not long ago, Paton Blough stood before a class of law enforcement officers to teach them effective ways to intervene with people with mental health needs. It’s a topic Blough knows all too well: He’s been arrested six times, in each instance while experiencing a mental health crisis. He remembers one arresting officer who wanted to help him.

“If there would have been an opportunity to take me some place besides an ER or a jail, he would’ve loved to have taken it,” Paton told a crowded room during a Capitol Hill briefing last week. “We’ve got to get behind these programs that prevent problems, improve lives and save us money while making the communities safer.”

Programs that can help reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jails, ranging from police training to certified peer support, are the basis for a new wave of national efforts highlighted Tuesday as Congressional leaders joined the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and the National Association of Counties (NACo) to discuss potential federal reforms and a new national initiative driven by the two organizations.

The briefing, which featured remarks from U.S. Sen. Al Franken (MN-D) and U.S. Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL), underscored bipartisan commitment to prioritize this issue for the 114th Congress, highlighted successful local efforts, and introduced a new national initiative emphasizing state-local collaboration and targeted action on the ground level.

“This is a moral issue and an economics issue,” said Sen. Franken. “When we use our jails to warehouse people with mental illnesses, we burden the judicial system, the public health system, our law enforcement offices, and the taxpayers. In confronting this problem, we know that some of the most innovative solutions come from our local communities. It’s our job to make sure they’re properly supported.”

Rep. Nugent added: “Senator Franken and I are probably a couple of odd fellows because on most of instances we won’t agree. But on this one we do agree, and this is where bipartisanship really has to come together. We have the ability to change where we go forward … This is one area that the federal government can actually make an impact on the people we represent, a typically unrepresented population.”

NACo and the CSG Justice Center, together with other leaders in behavioral health and criminal justice, also discussed plans for an unprecedented effort to lower the number of people with mental illnesses in jails by improving access to effective mental health and co-occurring substance use treatment, strengthening criminal justice collaborations with behavioral health stakeholders, and advancing public safety goals.

“Counties are working to reduce the number of people with behavioral health and substance abuse needs in jails across the country,” said NACo Executive Director Matthew Chase. “This cutting-edge initiative will help counties focus on results and take their efforts to the next level. It will support action-oriented, comprehensive strategies to provide needed services in appropriate settings.”

The problem is clear: Jails in this country have replaced in-patient mental health facilities as the largest institutional treatment provider for adults with mental illnesses. Each year, more than 2 million people with serious mental illnesses are booked into jails, as well as millions more coping with less serious mental illnesses that jails are required to address. The majority of these individuals also have co-occurring substance use disorders, increasing their chances of staying longer in jail and being reincarcerated following their release.

The centerpiece of the initiative is a “Call to Action,” in which county leaders commit to a concrete, multi-step planning and implementation process that is supported by state policymakers, behavioral health and criminal justice practitioners, and other stakeholders to help achieve measurable results. The Call to Action will be launched in spring 2015.

John Wetzel, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and a member of the CSG Justice Center’s Board of Directors, provided closing remarks at the event, where he urged public officials and other stakeholders to “step up and do the right thing” regarding individuals and offenders with mental illnesses.

“Prisons were not designed to treat individuals with mental disorders, but the courts send these offenders to us and we must do everything possible to provide them with appropriate mental health services,” Wetzel said. “But in addition to these efforts, society in general needs to address this issue and seriously consider mental health courts and diversionary programs to ensure treatment for this segment of our population that does not include sending them to prison.”




via: http://csgjusticecenter.org/mental-health/posts/law-enforcement-health-advocates-and-members-of-congress-push-to-reduce-the-number-of-people-with-mental-illness-in-jails/

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department opens expanded jail

ADELANTO >> Three years in the making, the $145.4 million expansion of the High Desert Detention Center adds 1,392 new beds to help relieve jail overcrowding brought about by the realignment of state prisoners.

On Thursday, hundreds rank and file from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and officials from across the county gathered at the High Desert Detention Center to celebrate the opening of the expanded jail. The project increases the jail’s footprint by 297,000 square feet to over 8 acres, and includes new medical and dental facilities that eliminate the need for deputies to transport inmates to West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga for those services.

“We’ve constructed a facility that is truly state of the art,” Sheriff John McMahon said during Thursday’s event, where a tour of the jail’s expanded wing followed. “This is a great opportunity for us to keep moving forward in the corrections business.”

A special coating on the walls in the jail’s intake and medical areas reduces the spread of infectious diseases such as staph infections, which are common in jails, prisons, and other communal living facilities.

Not having to drive prisoners to Rancho Cucamonga from the High Desert allows deputies to get back to their patrol duties faster after booking them in Adelanto.

The jail’s expanded wing will open in three phases, as the Sheriff’s Department’s budget allows for staffing of the facility. The first phase will see 222 beds filled within the next couple weeks, and the inmates who get those beds will be those whose cases are being heard in High Desert courtrooms.

Construction on the project began in 2011 and included a new 25,00-square-foot booking building, three housing units, remodeled kitchen and laundry facilities, a new parking lot and fire access roads. A number of unforeseen issues during construction including design flaws and changes to building codes caused the project budget to increase by $25.4 million.

The facility is equipped with a high definition video-surveillance system, and video monitors in each housing unit will allow inmates to visit with family and others. They will no longer be allowed face-to-face visitations because inmate movement is being restricted for security purposes, said the jail’s commander Capt. Jon Marhoefer.

Video visitation has been in place for the past year at smaller jails in Barstow and Joshua Tree and is becoming a trend statewide, Marhoefer said.

“You will see more and more of this,” Marhoefer said, adding that the video visiting system at the High Desert Detention Center is the first time the county has implemented the technology on such a large scale.

As the county’s jails swelled in the 1990s and began reaching full capacity, the need for more became apparent. In 2008, the county applied for, and received, $100 million from the state for the expansion project, initially budgeted at $144 million.

The state funding was made available through the Offender Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007, which freed up $1.2 billion for jail construction projects across California.