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“THE MENTALLY ILL OFFENDER TREATMENT AND CRIME REDUCTION ACT OF 2003” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1161-E1162 on June 5, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE MENTALLY ILL OFFENDER TREATMENT AND CRIME REDUCTION ACT OF 2003
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HON. TED STRICKLAND
of ohio
in the house of representatives
Thursday, June 5, 2003
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, the companion to a bill introduced in the Senate today by Senator DeWine.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 16 percent of adults incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons have a mental illness. In addition, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reports that over 20 percent of youth in the juvenile justice system have serious mental health problems, and many more have co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders.
These statistics, however, cannot adequately describe how devastating the combination of untreated mental illness and the criminal justice system can be for both an individual and the system. Today I had the pleasure to meet Tom Lane. Tom, a 43-year-old man who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, now works for the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill (NAMI) as the Director of the Office of Consumer Affairs. However, just a few years ago in July 1997, Tom was suffering from severe depression. He was a cabinetmaker who had sustained a head injury from a construction accident that caused him to have seizures and prevented him from working. When he called a suicide hotline, police were dispatched. The officers put him in jail, where he did not receive treatment for depression and was not allowed to take his anti-
seizure medication. When he started suffering two seizures a day, he was hospitalized. Upon his release from the hospital he still did not receive any treatment or recommendation of treatment for his mental illness and for days he slept in the bushes outside the hospital. Fortunately, Tom was eventually able to contact his family from a pay phone and they came to his rescue. Once he began receiving treatment, Tom was able to get back on his feet. Today he is a highly functioning, highly effective professional advocate for people with mental illness.
Tom's story illustrates how easy it is for a person with mentally illness to become entangled with the criminal justice system. Untreated mental illness often leads to behaviors that attract the attention of police officers. If a person with mentally illness does not receive treatment, his or her condition almost definitely will worsen when they are in custody. Generally, the criminal justice system is not equipped to identify and ensure people with mentally illness find appropriate treatment programs, either through diversion into community treatment or within a jail or prison. The bill I am introducing seeks to make sure people like Tom Lane don't fall through the cracks. It encourages collaboration between the mental health treatment and the criminal justice systems. This collaboration is essential for ensuring mentally ill offenders are given the treatment they need.
The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2003 is phase two of an effort that started in the 106th Congress, when Senator DeWine and I successfully passed America's Law Enforcement and Mental Health Project (P.L. 106-515). This bill created a Department of Justice grant program assisting State and local governments with the establishment of mental health courts. Mental health courts--which are modeled on drug courts--provide specialized dockets in non-adversarial settings to bring mental health professionals, social workers, public defenders and prosecutors together to divert mentally ill offenders into a treatment plan. The goals of a mental health court are to expand access to mental health treatment, improve the community's response to mentally ill offenders, and reduce recidivism among the mentally ill population. I am pleased that this program has been incredibly popular.
The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2003 will build on America's Law Enforcement and Mental Health Project by providing additional resources for communities that wish to create mental health courts. The new bill represents a significant commitment to addressing the needs of both the criminal justice system and the mentally ill offender population. The bill will create a grants program for communities that will provide resources for diversion programs across the spectrum of the criminal justice community, including prebooking diversion programs like those that have been so successful in Los Angeles, California and Memphis, Tennessee. Communities will be able to design programs that provide mental health treatment in jails and in prisons. And finally, grants will be available for transitional or aftercare programs that seek to ensure offenders are provided appropriate treatment and care when they transition from jail or prison back into the community when they have completed their sentences.
The bill is intended to give communities much flexibility to design and operate the programs they identify as most appropriate for meeting their needs, and grant funds will be able to be used for planning, establishing a structure, and funding treatment. All successful grant applicants will be required to demonstrate collaboration between the criminal justice and mental health treatment agencies in a community. Too often, mentally ill offenders fall through the cracks because the relevant systems in a community do not work together. This lack of collaboration is detrimental to both the mentally ill offender as well as the stability of the criminal justice system. Therefore, criminal justice and mental health treatment agencies will be required to apply together for the grants established by the bill, compelling the collaboration that is needed to get those who are mentally ill and coming in contact with the criminal justice system the mental health and substance abuse treatment they need. In addition, the bill requires that grant applicants ensure mentally ill offenders are connected to education, job training and placement, and housing programs.
In addition, the bill calls for an Interagency Task Force to be established at the Federal level. Task Force members will include: the Attorney General; the Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Labor, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development; and the Commissioner of Social Security. The Task Force will be charged with identifying ways that Federal departments can respond collaboratively to the needs of mentally ill adults and juveniles.
I strongly believe that encouraging collaboration at the Federal, State, and local levels of government is essential to ensuring that people with mental illness are able to access the mental health treatment and other support programs they need.
I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this bill and make our communities safer for all.
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