Panel to study treatment of imprisoned mentally ill

AUGUSTA – The pervasive problem of the poor treatment of the mentally ill behind prison walls is too big, too pervasive, for a single bill to handle, the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee decided Tuesday. The committee voted to carry over the major bill dealing with the problem and form a study commission to investigate over the summer.

The study commission will consider the construction of a new mental health center for inmates and a mental health court modeled on the drug courts, members said.

Mentally ill inmates are too often chained naked to cell floors while medication is withheld by jail guards untrained in mental health, relatives and friends told the committee last month. One inmate was “chained to the floor like a rabid dog” then committed suicide in a county jail after he was arrested on a minor offense, a relative told the committee.

Not a single county or state jail meets national standards for the treatment of the mentally ill, according to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. NAMI estimated that the state’s jails deal with 5,000 mentally ill inmates each year. A number of organizations supported LD 1492 in an effort to require improved training for all correctional officers.

That training could be costly to the state, county and municipalities, committee members agreed Tuesday. The committee tried to develop cost estimates for the bill then decided the bill would never pass the Appropriations Committee, which is already struggling with budget shortfalls. They also agreed that mandating the program and forcing counties and municipalities to pay the costs was unacceptable.

The committee’s Senate chair, Michael McAlevey, R-Waterboro, endorsed the study commission idea because a “band-aid or partial approach” was unacceptable and any effort to fund a serious change was “doomed to death” before the Appropriations Committee.

The reason for the problem in prisons was the mainstreaming effort in mental health institutions that released hundreds of patients to the streets, according to Rep. Patricia A Blanchette, D-Bangor, who called for a “major overhaul of the entire system.”

“It would be far cheaper in the long run to treat these inmates than to keep placing them in jail cells,” she said. “It’s time we stood up as a government and offered a solution. I can’t think of a more inhumane thing to do than put them into a correctional setting.”

Although several committee members wanted to pass a bill this session to start increased training for jail guards, the votes were unanimous to carry over LD 1492 to the next session and to pass LD 1099 to form a study commission.