by Terry Dye

Created on: February 18, 2009

Thanks to Ronald Reagan our criminal system is overtaxed by the burden of mentally ill people who we aren't bothering to treat. Mentally ill people will only benefit from treatment for their mental illness - no matter how thoughtful a prison reform system is.

We understand and can do so much more for mental illness today than we ever could before, yet our youth (whose mental illness is just beginning to bud) ends up in juvenile hall instead a mental hospital. If the parent expresses concern over the child's mental health - it is the parent whose mental health is scrutinized. This is a terrible tragedy because we know today that the more schizophrenia is allowed to play out, the more extensive and permanent the brain damage becomes.

Our criminal system treats mentally ill people just as if they were competent. I heard a father describe his pleading with the court at his son's hearing for killing a police officer. He described trying to explain - "You don't understand, my son truly believed they were aliens" - the son was found guilty of murder even though he was afraid and confused because of the aliens approaching him. This was after the father had been trying to get mental health help for his son to no avail.

My brother works in a county jail. He tells me about the high percentage of inmates who are obviously mentally ill. He says the number keeps increasing over the years he has been there. This is not a cost effective way to manage our mentally ill population.

I have heard story after story of families trying to get mental health for their mentally ill loved ones, especially schizophrenia, bipolar disease and depression. The resources just aren't there, and the criminal system is extremely behind in their understanding of mental illness and the reality of the need for quality modern treatment.

In Sonoma County we have the problem of the interface between the mentally ill and our police officers heavily on our minds. We have had quite a few cases recently where officers have killed someone in a mental illness crises - even a child! Imagine the grief these officers must live with! If we would "bite the bullet" and do what it takes to treat mental illness, our officers could be risking life and limb (not to mention their careers) fighting crime rather than fighting mental illness - something that is curable, and even to a large degree preventable if diagnosed early.

To help California's prison crisis, our economy, crime rates, mass murders, police safety, and to ease a lot of suffering, I say let's pick some low hanging fruit and revamp our mental health-care system. Lets treat our mentally ill with the modern modalities available today. We will get a big bang for our buck in terms of the many benefits our society as a whole will reap.

Let's get the mentally ill out of our prisons, then let's see who we have left there and whether or not reform is possible for that population.

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