R.I.P. Mumford Morgan/Further Explanation of Mental Health Court
The Philadelphia Daily News had a good editorial on Friday about “sequential interception,” which is the approach taken both by the new mental health court and by the Crisis Intervention Teams that work within the police department. From that editorial:
Unfortunately for Mumford Morgan, this unit was not called when police shot and killed him last Friday in Dilworth Plaza. Morgan, 59, who was homeless and apparently mentally ill, made 40 calls in just over two hours from an emergency call box in the concourse under the Municipal Services Building. When two police officers arrived, he raised a utility knife and was shot to death.
Mental-health advocates are rightly asking why the CIT was not called to the scene and why police did not use Tasers instead of guns to subdue Mumford. We urge the Police Department to review the case and renew its commitment to CIT.
The editorial goes on to endorse the new court by explaining its roots and purpose. Please, naysayers, read this carefully:
The court and the CIT are responses to a complex problem that began decades ago when the closing of state hospitals released mentally ill people into the community without adequate support or services.
Decades later, the high numbers of mentally ill people occupying prisons – some reports put the number at 30 percent of the inmate population – suggests that in too many cases, prisons have replaced state hospitals.
This has huge impacts on both management and budgets. Consider: The Philadelphia prison system is the largest provider of mental-health services in the state of Pennsylvania, according to a report from former city prisons chief Leon King.
The mental health court is a small step, but the right one. The new court will begin with 15 carefully screened inmates who are about to be released, who will get supervision and treatment. Funded by a state grant, the court will handle only non-violent offenders. If that works, presumably more ex-inmates will be added to the court’s supervision.
There’s no shortage of prisoners who could benefit. It’s a component of many arrests for public disturbances, theft, drugs, aggressive panhandling and – in less common instances – violent crimes. Add in addiction, homelessness, and an insufficient health-care system and it’s no surprise that more mentally ill people are receiving more treatment in jail than in hospitals.
But hospital stays are short compared to prison sentences, and mentally ill prisoners tend to be incarcerated longer than average due in part to their conditions: In jail, they might be taken off medications abruptly, which can lead to acute episodes, behavioral infractions, and more time tacked on. A similar cycle traps recently-released prisoners as they return to the community, leading to high rates of recidivism.
Full article here.
liz | 9:18 AM | criminal justice system, philadelphia
The police should have used tasers regardless of any medical problem or “mental illness.” Furthermore you’ve got the problem of sentencing, unless you think that aggressive panhandling or theft deserve lifetime sentencing, mental health courts are inherently unjust. What if it’s not that people go to jail because they are mentally ill but that jails cause mental illness? Reform the jails, reduce sentences and first and foremost develop jobs, but don’t redefine criminal behavior as “treatable mental illness,” and worst of all, punishment as treatment.
The article states:
“The new court will begin with 15 carefully screened inmates who are about to be released, who will get supervision and treatment.”
Supervision and treatment are not release. Give these guys jobs, housing and a parole officer. It’s cheaper, just and would actually work.
It’s not going to work squat if they are delusional, having fits of uncontrollable rages and addiction issues, to give them housing and jobs. They will get fired and thrown out of the housing! You are obviously against medication but if it is a brain chemical problem why not use medication? For any other part of the body medication is used and acceptable treatment. If a mentally ill person wants to have a life or any quality of life than meds have to be taken. You “sound” mental fighting about meds all the time.
Hey ‘reality’… do you have any idea how disgusting your comment is? How dare you coerce others to medicalize human distress based on mere speculation and assertions. How dare you. Show me one person in the history of psychiatry who was labeled mentally ill with the aid of any test that gave the ‘doctor’ any insight whatsoever into the person’s ‘brain chemistry’. You’re disgusting. Mental health courts are nothing but judicial forced tranquilization, they are abhorrent in a free society.
You’re also indoctrinated Liz Spikol posting that… state hospitals were nothing but prisons by another name, with worse loss of freedom than prisons, given they strip the person of their biological freedom too.
Sensationalist journalism used for propaganda purposes. Did you factor in that psychiatric drugs have serious withdrawal symptoms. Psychiatric drugs destroy libidos perhaps justifying (for you) their use on prisoners for various reasons: homophobia, the inherent problems of and/or guilt over inhumanely denying prisoners access to members of the oppossite sex, or more sinisterly population control/social darwinism.
Moreover, your “statistics” seems to contradict your intent: a broken health care system and rampant homelessness means that more people getting treatment in prison is inflated on the side of the prison. This would mean those non criminal homeless and or people without insurance would still not be getting the “help they need”. Unless of course again you think mental illness causes crime, therefore all “mentally ill” people will become criminals without treatment. Though from that paragraph you seem to equate poverty with crime. Or is it crime is a symptom of mental illness. Are there good criminals and bad criminals?
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