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Bridge the Chasm from Prison to Treatment for the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
Mar 4, 2009
 

This is AIMI's bridge for the incarcerated mentally ill WITH your help.

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally ill ( AIMI ) advocates for psychiatric treatment rather than imprisonment for mental patients.  We need your help to bridge the gap back to wholesome living for imprisoned and at risk mental patients.  Many people with mental illness woke up this moring in cells no larger than a small closet where they will spend another 23 hours alone and afraid.  Some are in solitary for years. That is why we need you to join our efforts to decriminalize mental illness! 


Here is AIMI's bridge WITHOUT your input.
Bridge Over Troubled Waters




I Believe Equal Justice Is Possible!   Together, yes we can! 

 



It's easy to help!  1.25 million sick people are cruelly imprisoned for having a common, treatable health condition.  Please contact your congressional representative today and demand that inpatient and outpatient treatment (depending on their offenses) replace incarceration for the mentally ill people in your state.  Use this link:  http://www.house.gov/writerep



Bridge to Springtime   Be someone's bridge today! 

Do you remember Frank Horton?
http://www.care2.com/news/member/513396753/941499

Consider my murdered brother, Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathOfLarryNeal.com

It happened to Nick Sauve
http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/help-danielle-save-her-schizophrenic.html

Sometimes, bad things happen because sick people do not get the help they need. Remember Cho and the Virginia Tech massacre?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

Most often, mental patients hurt no one, but they are subject to homelessness, prison and death.  Consider Tim Souders.  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/08/60minutes/main2448074.shtml 


NEWSFLASH:  There are millions more like them, including intelligent, talented people who have a common health condition that requires monitoring and treatment like any medical condition - and many are in your state.  Please send your congressperson a quick email or call to help decriminalize mental illness.  Move sick people from being inmates to inpatients or outpatients, depending on their conditions and offenses.  Remember that people are not imprisoned until AFTER avoidable crimes - sometimes murders.  http://www.house.gov/writerep


Most mentally ill inmates are not incarcerated for violent offenses and may not need hospitalization.  Instead, they only need subsistence assistance and mandated treatment in their communities. Participants in programs that combine those two elements experience over an 80% decrease in homelessness, incarcerations, hospitalizations, and repeat arrests. Assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs such as Kendra's Law are more humane and less expensive on taxpayers than punishing citizens for being sick.  Make your community safer by supporting AOT's - a financially prudent, just, and humane alternative to prison.  See the amazing success at this link:
http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=70 


Like other chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart trouble, sometimes hospitalization is necessary.  When Medicaid was withdrawn in the 1970's, mental hospitals began to close.  They are still closing while our prison rolls swell.  This does not save money, but it punishes people for having a health problem that could/should be addressed medically, not legally.  Support Congressional bill H.R.619 to resume Medicaid for psychiatric inpatients.  NAMI does, and so do TAC, AIMI and other mental health advocates.   It's the right thing to do. 


VOTE to resume Medicaid for mental patients in temporary crisis and for those who require long-term containment for their safety and ours.  Draft a letter of support for H.R.619 from your church, temple, civic organization, or online group and post it online.  Let our elected officials and the world know you care.
Cast your vote at OpenCongress.org.
 http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h619/show


See the letter of support for H.R.619 from National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) as an example for yours.  http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1405992


Helping to decriminalize mental illness is as easy as 1, 2, 3 - Send an email to Congress supporting H.R.619 and AOT programs; vote your support for H.R.619 at OpenCongress.org, and publish your letter of support on the Internet!

ONE MORE THING!  Please forward this notice to your prison outreach and missionary boards, pastors, rabbis and other religious and civic leaders, prisoner activist groups, civil and human rights organizations, and friends who care like you do about bridging the gap back to wholesome living for sick people - our neighbors and loved ones.

Click here and listen to Clay Aiken sing - awesome!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC9SKjdoTXg
.
If you take any of the steps above to help AIMI in our endeavor to assist the least of these, His brethren (sick, naked prisoners and those at risk for incarceration because they have acute mental illness), please send an email to let me know that you did at MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com and add us to your mailing list.  Visit or join AIMI at the link below. THANKS!
.
Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.Care2.com/groups/AIMI

JAIL IS THE LAST THING THAT
MENTAL PATIENTS NEED, AND TOO OFTEN, IT IS
THE VERY LAST THING THEY EXPERIENCE. Please join
our effort to decriminalize mental illness. No one
deserves to be punished for having a disability.
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Posted: Mar 4, 2009 6:34am

 
 
 
Content and comments expressed here are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates.

Author

Mary Neal
female, age 57, divorced, 2 children
Stone Mountain, GA, USA
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