Pubdate: Mon, 07 Jan 2008
Source: Star-Gazette (NY)
Copyright: 2008 Star-Gazette
Contact:  http://www.stargazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1005
Author: Jeff Murray
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)

PROBATION OFFICIALS OFFER HOPE FOR THOSE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

In Chemung County, Program Aims to Treat People With Disorders, Drug Problems.

Chemung County hopes to lead the way with a new statewide effort to 
address a serious problem in the criminal justice system.

Officials believe the program could save taxpayers money while more 
effectively dealing with a significant number of the people who run 
afoul of the law.

A large percentage of people who come into the system have mental 
health disorders or substance abuse issues, or often both. But the 
system is set up to punish people who commit crimes and not to deal 
with some of the underlying problems that often lead to those crimes, 
according to local criminal justice and mental health officials.

That's starting to change, and a new program launched by the Chemung 
County Probation Department is a step in the right direction, said 
provisional probation director Tom Bruner.

"The criminal justice system has been shortsighted in working with 
individuals with mental health disorders," Bruner said. "We used to 
warehouse them in large, abusive institutions. It's been replaced 
with a new system -- prison. It's morally repugnant to take some of 
the most vulnerable people in our society who commit a crime and end 
up in a jail cell but still have a disorder.

"Because they continue to have a mental health disorder, they often 
end up in the worst possible situation -- solitary confinement," Bruner said.

Bruner's solution isn't costing the county any more money but is 
focusing more attention on the needs of jail inmates and probation 
clients with mental health issues.

To achieve that, Bruner took one of his probation officers and 
created a special caseload for her. That officer will focus solely on 
clients who come into the system and are flagged with potential 
mental health and/or substance abuse issues.

"She will monitor these individuals and make sure they are in proper 
treatment. It's intensive supervision," Bruner said. "We have someone 
who comes here once a week, an expert in mental health issues. She 
meets with our officers to discuss cases that are problematic."

Bruner has worked closely with the county Department of Mental 
Hygiene, the sheriff's office and Family Services of Chemung County 
to develop the program.

He launched the initiative after attending a conference in the fall 
sponsored by the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitative Services.

There's a statewide push called Project CONNECT that also involves 
the state Office of Mental Hygiene and Division of Probation and 
Correctional Alternatives to re-evaluate the way the criminal justice 
system handles people with mental health disorders, said association 
Deputy Director Mathew Mathai.

"Across the state and the country, there's a growing recognition that 
people with psychiatric disabilities and those with addiction are 
more and more likely to also be involved in the criminal justice 
system," Mathai said. "There's research that demonstrates people with 
even the most severe mental illness can recover.

"The idea was to come up with a process and money for technical 
assistance to allow (local agencies) to talk to each other and get 
training from each other to help them integrate values of wellness 
and recovery," he said.

Warehousing people with mental illnesses in jails and not properly 
treating them is not only unfair to the individual, but it puts an 
extra burden on the system and the community, said Brian Hart, 
director of community services for the Chemung County Department of 
Mental Hygiene.

"Certainly the vast majority of those coming into the legal system 
have either mental health or substance abuse issues," Hart said. 
"That plays out when you look at specialty courts. We have three drug 
courts in our community.

"We continue to design programs that will triage people better so 
they aren't ending up in jails, and really focus on the jails and how 
to move people off of constant watch in a quicker fashion, so they 
are not sitting there and having high-end service they may not need," he said.

Those high-end services are also high cost, said Chemung County 
Sheriff Christopher Moss.

A system that better sorts people coming in so that the people who 
need mental health services the most get them can benefit those 
people and save taxpayers money, Moss said.

"It's very costly. We spend $200,000 a year in overtime for 
individuals on constant watch because of suicidal or homicidal 
tendencies," said Moss, who said all jail inmates are screened for 
mental health disorders on intake.

"What we're tying to do is make sure there isn't overlap in services 
provided. It will be good for one person to keep track of it," he 
said. "Long term, we want to save some funds but also make sure 
inmates get the mental health services they deserve."

The Chemung County Probation Department currently supervises about 
1,000 adults, Bruner said.

Six officers handle about 100 cases each from the general population, 
while another two officers oversee high-risk felons and one handles 
sex offenders. Another three officers work with juveniles who are 
making the transition to the adult system, Bruner said.

The officer who was assigned a month ago to work with clients with 
mental health issues has about 10 people to supervise so far, and 
Bruner would like to limit her caseload to about 25, because each 
client requires intensive supervision.

Bruner said that it's a small step given the enormity of the problem 
but added that an important step and one which he hopes will catch on 
around the state.

"I'd love to see a statewide cooperative effort to put this on the 
front burner, and really put the resources into the community to work 
with this category of individual," Bruner said. "We've been pointing 
fingers at each other without doing a lot of talking. We have to stop that.

"We want the community to be safe, but we want these individuals to 
be treated humanely and fairly." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake