Over the past two decades the criminal justice system has increasingly become the de facto mental health system in America for too many citizens. The San Antonio Express-News has an editorial today, "Mental health reform requires a team effort." A link to the article referenced in the editorial is below.
Mentally ill patients who end up living on the streets and getting caught up in the criminal justice system should be as lucky as Paul O'Malley.
He is the 39-year-old man who was befriended by employees at the Bexar County Courthouse. As courthouse reporter Elizabeth Allen wrote this week, they were ultimately able to reunite him with his sister, who has taken him to a center in Colorado to be near her.
Unfortunately, there are dozens of individuals like O'Malley in Bexar County who keep cycling in and out of the system.
Their names appear frequently on the civil and criminal dockets. Instead of receiving the help they need, they are shuffled in one door and out another, only to go through the same process time and time again.
A recent review of the civil court docket by the county's budget staff showed that one 65-year-old individual has been in and out of the county jail on petty charges 40 times over the past 20 years.
His 1,036 days in jail have cost the county more than $207,000 in jail-bed dollars. That does not include the police man-hours spent processing him and the court time and expense dealing with his cases.
The Express-News' Elizabeth Allen had, "Mentally ill man's case may be an example for the future," on June 6.
The kind of coordinated effort that helped O'Malley doesn't happen for most street people, especially those who struggle with illness. O'Malley suffers from Huntington's disease, an incurable, inherited disorder that attacks the nerve cells in the brain. The state system isn't set up to help him or others struggling with mental illness.
"You can't get mental treatment sometimes unless you're in blazing flames," said Probate Court 1 Judge Polly Jackson Spencer, whose duties include handling civil mental health commitments and setting up guardianships.
But the fortuitous timing that worked for O'Malley soon may begin to click for others, as many of the same people who helped him are trying to improve Bexar County's system, and perhaps make it a model for Texas.
There are a lot of hurdles, starting with the people who need the most help.
More on the topic, including Travis County's mental health public defender program, is here.
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