Shelf Life: A Criminally Insane System

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While men like Hatcher, whose history of mental illness should have made him eligible for psychiatric treatment in jail, are swept under the rug of a swelling prison population, dubious new laws are using mental illness as a way to keep sex offenders locked up indefinitely.

The Nation (Dec. 31, 2007) reports that civil commitment laws in 20 states have declared more than 4,000 sex offenders mentally unfit, which keeps them in jail or sends them to psychiatric facilities when their sentences are up. This happens despite the fact that “most psychologists agree that mental illness is not a prerequisite for sexual violence,” the Village Voice notes in “To Catch-22 a Predator” (July 16, 2008). Furthermore, attaching the language of mental illness to some of society’s most reviled members isn’t likely to help erode the misconception that mentally ill people are prone to violence.

There is a growing recognition that the criminal justice system, from arrest to court date to incarceration, simply does not work for many people with mental illness. In cities and counties across the country, mental health courts are springing up to help close the revolving door between jail and street.

Pennsylvania is currently the model state on that front, writes Sasha Abramsky for the American Prospect. Five of its counties have implemented mental health courts, which work intensively with nonviolent offenders to connect them with treatment, employment, and frequent supervision, all with an eye toward keeping them out of jail. Police officers are trained to recognize when they’re dealing with mental illness, and in Allegheny County they can take people to a 24-hour crisis center instead of lockup. “Graduates” of these programs also have much lower rates of recidivism: In Allegheny County, it’s just 10 percent, compared to the statewide rate of 55 percent.

These programs aren’t cheap—Westword reports (May 29, 2008) that a Denver pilot program costs around $12,000 per person—but this up-front investment jibes with the Council for State Government’s Consensus Project, which recognizes the potential for long-term cost savings from lower incarceration rates. In Portland, Oregon, mental health advocates eagerly await the start of their own pilot project, says the Portland Mercury (May 1, 2008). “If we actually provided effective, outcome-based treatment on demand for mental health clients in Oregon,” mental health advocate Jason Renaud told the Mercury, “you could probably shut down one hospital and two prisons within two years.”

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