MENTALLY ILL IN PRISON

Even though Criminal Justice Committee members were aware that the Legislature will not be spending an additional $9.6 million to help the mentally ill in Maine’s jails and prisons, they voted unanimously to approve a proposal that addresses the broad problem of inadequate training and services and put a realistic price on solving it. The full Legislature should support the bill not because it is likely the money will be found but as a recognition that this serious injustice exists here.

LD 2068 is a lengthy list of changes in community policing, the court system and prisons that all point toward understanding and treating the mentally ill. It is the result of two years of work that included the committee, the King administration, advocates and the families of inmates. The bill would examine ride-along programs in police departments, help the courts find alternatives to jailing the mentally ill, improve hospital care in prison, increase the Department of Corrections’ ability to respond to people with mental illness and increase training for community based mental-health workers, among other things. It is an expensive proposal, but so is locking up people with mental illness.

The U.S. Justice Department last year estimated that more than 16 percent of inmates have serious mental illness, six times the rate of the general population and a drastic increase over past decades. Certainly, the very atmosphere of prison is enough to cause anyone to suffer mental-health problems and those with mild difficulties going in to prison feel them more severely. Many, but not enough, inmates were receiving treatment at the time the data were collected. Despite this effort, 22 states (not Maine) were under court-ordered consent decrees because of conditions of their jails and prisons, often related to inadequate mental-health and substance abuse services.

LD 2068 tries to do better than just put the entire burden on the prisons. By backing up through the courts and law-enforcement, it improves skills and responses throughout the criminal-justice system. It emphasizes the link between inadequate resources for treatment of the mentally ill and the result for many of them. It allows Maine to act seriously about solving the problem.

And, naturally, there is not enough money to fund the bill; there never is enough money in situations like this. But the Legislature should pass LD 2068 simply to indicate that it is willing to admit the injustice for the mentally ill exists and that it is not satisfied with the status quo.