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Treat Mentally Ill Lawbreakers Instead Of Warehousing Them

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 20, 2007

For years, many mentally ill Floridians without the means to obtain proper treatment have gotten into trouble and ended up in our county jails or state prisons. Until recently, lawmakers have looked the other way.

Some of our jails are little more than psychiatric warehouses offering unhappy doses of human misery. But that should change if the Legislature approves a smart and ambitious plan to help current inmates re-enter society and help other mentally sick people avoid ever darkening the prison doorway.

This is no feel-good gimmick designed to score political points. It's an acknowledgement of an expensive reality: Florida cannot continue to build prisons to accommodate people who are only there because they can't find help.

Last year judges in Miami-Dade, Broward and Pinellas counties threatened the state Department of Children and Families with sanctions because, when inmates were declared incompetent to stand trial, the agency wasn't transferring them to state hospitals within the prescribed time. Some prisoners were waiting months for a bed. It became clear the state's policy didn't make sense.

The state responded by freeing up emergency money and promised to spend $48 million annually for 300 new forensic mental health beds, clearing the 300-patient backlog.

The larger plan to fix the mess is complex and calls for redesigning the system. The project will need a $20 million infusion from general revenue to get started, but it should sustain itself using Medicaid money and savings derived from the loss of mental health beds that will no longer be needed.

"About 125,000 people with serious mental illness are arrested every year in need of immediate treatment," said Judge Steve Leifman, who chaired the commission. "About half of them are killing the system. The idea is to wrap our arms around them, using federal money."

The six-year plan initially targets inmates being released from jail to make sure they get the appropriate mental health care and don't return to prison. It correctly focuses on counties that send the most inmates to mental hospitals.

Later, the system will be expanded to provide services to those at risk of being arrested and then to the larger population of mentally ill people in the state.

If estimates are correct, the state would have to build 10 more prisons in the next decade. If changes aren't made, the current system will cost Florida much more in the long run.

For some taxpayers it will be hard to muster up much sympathy for those incarcerated for doing wrong, even if they are mentally ill. But it will be a savings to everyone and a help to the individuals needing treatment if the state can cut overcrowding and provide much-needed mental health care.

State officials are finally realizing it makes neither financial nor medical sense for prisons to be Florida's de facto mental institutions for the severely mentally ill.

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