BY PETER BRONSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Back in the Dark Ages, we locked crazy people in state mental hospitals with bars on the windows. But we've come a long way. Now we call them "mentally ill," and let them wander the streets -- until they do something crazy. Then we lock them up in jails and prisons. If we don't shoot them first.
DISCLAIMER: Not all mentaly ill people are walking the streets or doing time in jail or prison. Modern drugs make it easier to control symptoms.
But the drugs don't work unless they are used as directed. And when a mental patient skips too many doses and starts acting wacky, we no longer send guys in white coats with nets and long-sleeved jackets. We send cops to arrest the "suspect" for disorderly conduct, panhandling -- or worse.
According to national estimates, about 7 percent of jail inmates are mentally ill. That's three times as many as you'd find in a newsroom. And it's worse in state prisons, where 10 percent are mentally ill. I heard about it at a meeting of the American Jail Association, which held its annual convention in Cincinnati last week. They invited me to participate in a morning discussion. I was supposed to do 8-10, but got out at 9:45 on good behavior.
Among other things, I learned:
An informal, low-cost "mental illness court" in Broward County, Fla., has cut the Sarasota-area jail population by 40-50 inmates daily, screening misdemeanor prisoners for mental illness and diverting them to treatment.
A jailer from St. Louis said his survey of 1,000 inmates found that 5 percent were on psychotropic drugs for mental illness.
As many as half of all suspects charged with domestic violence have had contact with mental-health agencies, according to Broward County Corrections Director Susan McCampbell.
And mentally ill people are often kept in jail without being charged.
"When hospitals get full, jails are often used instead. And sometimes, it's done out of mercy," said Ronald Honberg of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
Mr. Honberg, a former member of the ACLU, says he is reconsidering unlimited "rights" for the mentally ill. "It is not humane to go to court to fight for someone's right to freeze to death under a bridge," he said.
Jail administrators are surprised and frustrated by all the mentally ill inmates they have to deal with. One invited "anyone who thinks they are not violent to visit my jail," and see how mentally ill prisoners endanger themselves and attack corrections officers. Mr. Honberg said the problem is getting worse: "This issue is a well-kept secret."
That's true -- but it's a secret that hides in front-page headlines.
Lorenzo Collins, who was shot to death by police in Cincinnati on Feb. 23, 1997, while threatening cops with a brick, was an escaped mental patient.
When Wilbur Worthen shot and killed homeless-activist Buddy Gray in Cincinnati on Nov. 14, 1996, he was so delusional and paranoid that he thought Mr. Gray was killing him with poison gas.
Daniel T. Williams, killed by Cincinnati Police Officer Kathleen Conway after shooting her four times on Feb. 2, had a history of mental problems.
And Wilford Berry Jr., the "volunteer" who is begging to die in Ohio's first execution since 1963, is waiting while the courts wonder about his sanity.
Anybody who asks to be executed must be a few cubes short of a full ice tray. But at least the "volunteer" is being examined by a whole tribe of headshrinkers. The irony is that state prisons provide good medical attention -- when it's too late to prevent "police-assisted suicide" or keep a mental patient out of the county slammer.
Ohio prisons now lead the nation in handling mental illness. Inmates are screened at the door, and some are forced to take medications to prevent violence. About 84 percent mix with the general prison population, but Ohio now has its own prison hospital for severe mental illness -- a loop back to those Dark Ages prisons for the "criminally insane."
And Ohio prisons now help mentally ill prisoners get treatment when they are released. The goal is not feel-good treatment as an alternative to punishing crime; it's punishment with treatment to protect society, said Reginald Wilkinson, director of Ohio prisons.
At their convention, jailers looked over stainless steel toilets, indestructible "detention furniture" and "The Violent Prisoner Chair," which has enough seatbelts and feetbelts for a seven-passenger minivan.
But the worry on jailers' minds was not prisoners busting out of jail -- it was the prisoners of mental illness who keep coming back.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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