Perils of involuntary mental health holds
South Dakota is one of five states where jailing people with mental illness is part of a deliberate strategy, and the state’s new governor wants to change the practice.
“They’re not criminals,” Gov. Kristi Noem said in an article published in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. “They’re having a crisis at a point in time when they need to be observed, but unfortunately, in a lot of communities, that’s the only option that folks have.”
The article cited the case of Nick Johnson, a 14-year-old whose mental health struggles include the loss of control that can include aggressiveness. Although not charged with any offense, the response had been stints in the Minnehaha County Juvenile Detention Center. “It feels like I’m in prison,” Nick said. “Why would a kid have to go through that?”
National advocacy groups have criticized the practice of imprisoning people with mental illness, and local jail officials have complained that their facilities have not been designed to deliver mental health treatment. “If you look at it from a strictly medical perspective, being in a jail setting is almost guaranteed to make somebody’s mental health crisis worse, not better,” said Lisa Dailey, legislative and policy counsel for the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national nonprofit that surveys and ranks states for their mental health policies. “It’s the worst possible thing you could do.” The report said the other states that take this approach toward people with mental illness are Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, and North Dakota.
Cutbacks may hit recovery centers
Idaho’s nine crisis centers are in peril in the first year of the administration of Gov. Brad Little. The centers, located in nine of the state’s cities, collectively had requested about $890,000 from the Idaho Millennium Fund that would enable them to stabilize precarious financing and improve outreach efforts in surrounding rural communities.
However, as the Idaho Statesman reported, the funding request did not make it to the governor’s budget recommendation for 2020. Instead, the governor intends to use the Millennium Fund funds to expand Medicaid coverage. The consequence of the lack of state financial support could be the shuttering of all nine centers. If that happens, it would be much harder for those in the throes of or recovering from addiction or mental health issues to find the support they need.
“[The centers’] continued survival has been something of a miracle already,” said Norma Jaeger, executive director of Recovery Idaho. The organization had submitted the funding request on behalf of the nine centers. “Hopefully, a better funding solution is on the horizon,” said Ms. Jaeger.
Some in government disagree with that view, contending that the ongoing use of the Millennium Fund was never in the plans and that the centers were expected to seek other nongovernmental sources of funding. This tact is contrary to the traditional state funding of mental health and substance abuse programs. The legality of the move is being considered by the state Supreme Court.