Mary Neal's Sharebook 

Congress passed an important law late last year, the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Law.

But more positive action is needed to bring about real CHANGE in the conditions of our most vulerable citizens and help acute mental patients avoid prison.  Prison costs American taxpayers about $50 billion each year, despite the fact that 2/3 of inmates are non-violent offenders. When one adds the cost of police to apprehend suspects and court costs, including appointing attorneys for the indigent, crime and punishment is said to cost taxpayers around $185 BILLION ANNUALLY.  Treatment of mental patients is much cheaper, just, and more humane than imprisoning people for offenses arising out of their mental illness, either as inpatients in a secure mental hospital or in their communities (depending on whether or not they did violent crimes).  Consider this information by NAMI:

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/housingfirst/whoneeds/mentallyill.html

People with severe mental illness were once housed by the hundreds of thousands in state mental hospitals. But the "deinstitutionalization" movement that began in the 1960s and gained steam in the '70s and '80s changed the landscape -- and the challenges that mentally ill people face.

It did not, however, mean the end to institutionalization. "What we have now is trans-institutionalization," says Andrew Sperling, legislative director for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. People with mental illness leave acute or chronic care facilities without adequate provisions for their housing or support, and end up sliding into homeless shelters or the criminal justice system, Sperling says.

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We should never have "trans-institutionalized" the nation's acute mental patients from facilities where they were hospital inpatients to make them prison inmates.

Here is what many of them suffer now:  (PRISON TORTURE VIDEO AT THE LINK BELOW)

Beware - graphic, violent, nudity, foul language - not for children or those who would find this disturbing.

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill  
http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI