Jail Diversion Grant
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
By DAN MURTAUGH
Staff Reporter
Mobile County officials want to expand a young program to reduce the number of mentally ill inmates in the crowded Metro Jail by releasing such prisoners earlier and improving their access to treatment.
The Mobile County Commission applied Monday for a $250,000 grant to expand a joint venture between the jail and the Mobile Mental Health Center. The program, which began in July, puts two mental health professionals at the jail to identify people who are already patients of the center and others who might need treatment, according to Turk Schlesinger, the CEO of the center and Bay Pointe Hospital.
The workers, Ray Terrell and Art Meadows, can give jail employees information about what medication the inmates need, Terrell said. When the inmates are about to be released, the workers will set up appointments between the inmates and treatment facilities and will arrange for transportation if needed, he said. Schlesinger said that in some cases, for non-violent inmates, Terrell and Meadows will work with jail officials to get the inmates out of jail earlier and into treatment programs. "We help people get out, stay out and remain out of the criminal justice system where possible," Terrell said.
The entities want to expand the program to work with judges to have treatment alternatives for sentencing of non-violent, mentally ill criminals, with probation officers to make sure released inmates continue their treatment, and with police officers and sheriff's deputies to provide training in dealing with the mentally ill, Schlesinger said. Terrell said that if the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance approves the grant, the funding would become available in November 2007. The funding would cover 30 months, according to a Justice Department document.
The program helps mental health workers meet their mission of helping the mentally ill while helping the jail reduce its overcrowding problem, Schlesinger said. Mobile County Metro Jail averages about 1,400 prisoners a day in a facility with 1,144 beds. Jail officials have been exploring ways to reduce the overcrowding. Earlier this year, they began talking with Prichard leaders about leasing space in the city's 60-bed jail, which has an average of only five prisoners a day. Attorneys are working out the details of such an arrangement, Metro Jail Warden Mike Haley said recently.
One of the reasons for the jail overcrowding is the large number of mentally ill inmates, Haley said. In the 1970s, a lawsuit began the process of closing state mental health hospitals and putting patients in community care. But such community care facilities could not compel patients to continue their treatment, and a large number of mentally ill people began to get arrested, Haley said. Many such people are arrested for non-violent crimes, such as trespassing, begging or loitering, Haley said. "It's really turned into a mental health treatment facility, and that's really not what jails are for," he said. One such case had a tragic ending in Mobile.
In 2000, James Carpenter was charged with several misdemeanors after Mobile police found him panhandling outside a fast-food restaurant. Court filings show that Carpenter had a history of mental illness; he even was labeled psychotic by a local doctor two days before he was arrested. Carpenter's erratic behavior led correction officers to shackle him and put him in solitary confinement. The shackles were too tight, cut into his wrists and ankles, and a flesh-eating bacteria infected the wounds and killed him.
In 2003, Mobile County and the Mobile County Sheriff's Office agreed to settle their part in the case for $1.45 million. The city of Mobile and several officials remain as defendants in the long-running lawsuit, filed by Carpenter's ex-wife, Dana Carpenter. Haley, who began working at the jail in 2003, said the new program will help prevent incidents like that from happening again. "If it saves one life it will have been effective," he said.
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