An
joint op ed from the Harris County Sheriff and the Houston Police Chief with the same title as this post reminds us that the Harris County Jail, by a wide margin, is the state's single largest mental health services provider. They fear that cuts by the Legislature to mental health services will further shift costs to Harris County (and by extension, all counties), citing a similar outcome after budget cuts in 2003:
A prime example of cost shifting has occurred within the Harris County Jail, now the largest mental health facility in Texas. The Harris County Jail treats more individuals with mental health issues on a daily basis than our state's 10 psychiatric hospitals combined. This is especially worrisome given that the United States Department of Justice reports that it costs 60 percent more to incarcerate inmates with serious mental illnesses than it costs to house typical inmates.
Calls to HPD's Crisis Intervention Team, which sends specially trained officers to situations involving the mentally ill, continue to climb every year. CIT received 15,122 calls in 2007; the number rose to 25,271 calls in 2009. During a six-month period, HPD officers spent 1,106 hours dealing with only 30 mentally ill individuals.
We point to these statistics not to blame individuals with mental illness or to suggest that they are a direct danger to the community but rather to explain why slashing the limited services available to them directly affects local law enforcement's ability to do its job. Continuing to increase our reliance on emergency responders to deal with the chronic mentally ill strains our already limited resources.
We point to these statistics not to blame individuals with mental illness or to suggest that they are a direct danger to the community but rather to explain why slashing the limited services available to them directly affects local law enforcement's ability to do its job. Continuing to increase our reliance on emergency responders to deal with the chronic mentally ill strains our already limited resources.
It also continues to criminalize mental illness, something that benefits no one and negatively affects all of us, whether we are the individuals living with a mental illness, their loved ones, or the taxpayers footing the increasing bill to provide expensive and repeated crisis treatment in our local emergency rooms, jails and state prisons.
The significant cuts the Legislature made in 2003 to this same system are very much part of why we find ourselves in such a precarious situation. We hope our legislators keep this in mind as they decide how to address this important public safety issue in the coming months. Spending less in the short run will only lead to higher costs later, not only in money but also in peace of mind.
See prior, related Grits posts:
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2 comments:
.Until society starts caring about each other agian,The Harris county Jail Is just a Mirror Of our society.Sweep your Problems under The Rug,Its all about the money.I got mine,You better get yours mentality.
Between 2006 and 2008 I was living under a bridge in Harris County, I 45 and 1960 to be exact. I was totally imersed in the crack lifestyle which gave me cause to serve a few stints in the Harris Co Jail. No matter where they put me, there were as many or more MHMR inmates as there were who were not. Many of them were on seraquel and clonopin. Clonopin seems to be the preferred method of management because the inmate sleeps until awakened to eat, take more meds or they need to use the restroom. ( Which is usually done wherever they happen to be standing because they are so totally drugged they defecate all over themselves.) I was there and I saw it many times. It was sad and sickening. Other inmates had to clean up the messes and the sick inmates were thrown in to the shower until the were clean. I remain yyour humble servant - The Homeless Cowboy
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