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New legislation addresses growing crisis in crime & homelessness from mental illness

Serious attention is finally being paid to the crisis in mental health facing the United States. Many of the worst problems affecting communities across America, including mass shootings, violence on the streets, and homelessness, are attributable to a change in the manner in which mental illness was handled by government.

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pennsylvania), a psychologist and Co-chair of the Mental Health Caucus and a founding member of the GOP Doctors Caucus, has introduced the  Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act,  H.R. 2646.

According to Murphy, “More than 11 million Americans have severe schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression yet millions are going without treatment and families struggle to find care for loved ones. The federal government’s approach to mental health has been a chaotic patchwork of antiquated programs and ineffective policies across numerous agencies. Sadly, patients end up in the criminal justice system or on the streets because services are not available.”

The problem is an example of a situation made worse by federal intervention. The Heritage Foundation notes that “Fifty years ago, America began a grand experiment by transferring to the federal government the fiscal responsibility for individuals with mental illnesses. During that half-century, it has become increasingly clear that the experiment has been a costly failure, both in terms of human lives and in terms of dollars. The outcome was, in fact, clear as early as 1984, when the chief architect of the federal community mental health centers program proclaimed it to be a failure: ‘The result is not what we intended, and perhaps we didn’t ask the questions that should have been asked when developing a new concept….’ Bringing sanity to our present mental health system is dependent on one essential change: Return the primary responsibility for such services to the states…. Rarely in the history of American government has a program conceived with such good intentions produced such bad results. The patients were deinstitutionalized from the state hospitals, but most of the 763 federally funded CMHCs failed to provide services for them. The majority of the discharged patients, and those who became mentally ill after the hospitals closed, ended up homeless, incarcerated in jails and prisons, or living in board-and-care homes and nursing homes that were often worse than the hospitals that had been closed.”

Journalistsresource  reports that “According to some estimates, as much as 50% of the U.S. prison population suffers from some form of mental illness. As a consequence, each year thousands of mentally ill offenders are sent to prisons that — because of overcrowding and limited resources — are poorly equipped to treat them. They are placed in solitary confinement, subjected to punishments inappropriate for their conditions and end up serving longer sentences than the general inmate population.”

According to a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration statistic reported by the National Homeless organization,  “20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness. In comparison, only 6% of Americans are severely mentally ill …In a 2008 survey performed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, 25 cities were asked for the three largest causes of homelessness in their communities. Mental illness was the third largest cause of homelessness for single adults (mentioned by 48% of cities). For homeless families, mental illness was mentioned by 12% of cities as one of the top 3 causes of homelessness.”

The proposed legislation would address the nation’s broken mental health system by focusing programs and resources on psychiatric care for patients & families most in need of services.
Rep. Murphy stresses that “Nearly 10 million Americans have serious mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression); but, millions are going without treatment as families struggle to find care for loved ones. To understand why so many in need of care go without treatment, the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations launched a top-to-bottom review of the country’s mental health system beginning in January 2013. The investigation, which included public forums, hearings with expert witnesses and document and budget reviews, revealed the federal government’s approach to mental health is a chaotic patchwork of antiquated programs and ineffective policies spread across numerous agencies with little to no coordination. As documented in a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, 112 federal programs intended to address mental illness aren’t connecting for effective service delivery and ‘interagency coordination for programs supporting individuals with serious mental illness is lacking.’”

“While the federal government dedicates $130 billion towards mental health each year, the so-called “mental health system” is best described by its deficits. To name just a few:

  • There is a nationwide shortage of nearly 100,000 needed psychiatric beds.
  • Three of the largest mental health “hospitals” are in fact criminal incarceration facilities (LA County, Cook County, and Rikers Island jails).
  •  Privacy rules that frustrate both physicians and family members generate nearly 8,000 official complaints yearly.
  • For every 2,000 children with a mental health disorder, only one child psychiatrist is available.
  • The leading federal mental health agency does not employ a psychiatrist.
  • Supporters of the bill state that it “fixes the nation’s broken mental health system by refocusing programs, reforming grants, and removing federal barriers to care.”

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Among the key provisions:

  • It Empowers Parents and Caregivers by Breaking down barriers for families to work with doctors and mental health professionals and be meaningful partners in the front-line care delivery team.
  • Drives Evidence-Based Care,
  •  Creates an Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders with mental health credentials within the Department of Health & Human Services to elevate the importance of mental health in the nation’s leading health agency,
  • coordinates programs across different agencies, and promote effective evidence-based programs.
  • Further Refines Mental Health & Substance Abuse Parity.
  •  Requires the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders to make public all federal investigations into compliance with the parity law so families and consumers know what treatment they have rights to access.
  •  Establishes a National Mental Health Policy Laboratory to drive innovative models of care,i
  • Improves Transition from One Level of Care to Another
  •  Requires psychiatric hospitals to establish clear and effective discharge planning to ensure a timely and smooth transition from the hospital to appropriate post-hospital care and services.
  • Fixes Shortage of Crisis Mental Health Beds Provides additional psychiatric hospital beds for those experiencing an acute mental health crisis and in need of short term (less than 30 days) immediate inpatient care for patient stabilization.”

 

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NY Analysis

Why is crime increasing?

For two decades, reports on crime had been encouraging. The Society Pages noted that “both violent and property crimes have dropped steadily and substantially for nearly twenty years. Whether looking to ‘official’ crime (reported to the police) or victimization surveys, the story is the same—both violent and property crimes have dropped like a stone.”

But that trend appears to be reversing.  USATODAY   reports “After seeing years of decline in violent crime, several major American cities experienced a dramatic surge in homicides during the first half of this year.

“Milwaukee, which had one of its lowest annual homicide totals in city history last year, has recorded 84 murders so far this year, more than double the 41 it tallied at the same point last year. Milwaukee is not alone.

“Baltimore, New Orleans and St. Louis have also seen the number of murders jump 33% or more in 2015. Meanwhile, Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, has seen the homicide toll climb by 19% and the number of shooting incidents increase in the city by 21% during the first half of the year.

The New York Daily News asked why there is an almost simultaneous increase in so many cities. “Why is there a synchronicity among these cities?” said Peter Scharf, an assistant professor at the LSU School of Public Health whose research focuses on crime. “One reason may be President Obama is broke. Governors like Bobby Jindal are broke, and mayors like (New Orleans’ Mitch) Landrieu are broke. You don’t have the resources at any level of government to fund a proactive law enforcement.”

Excepts from the Daily News research: “So far this year, Baltimore has recorded 155 homicides, including three people who were killed late Tuesday evening near the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus. The 2015 homicide toll is 50 higher than it was at the same point last year. The Charm City, which is seeing some of the worst violence since the 1990s when it routinely tallied 300 murders annually, recorded 42 killings in May alone.

“In St. Louis, there have been 93 homicides compared with 58 at the same point last year. The increased violence this year in St. Louis follows the city recording a more than 30% increase in murders in 2014, when police in the city saw a steep rise in violence following the shooting death last August of Michael Brown, a black teenager, in nearby Ferguson by a white police officer. Police have made arrests in only 29 of the 2015 homicide cases, suggesting witnesses are increasingly showing a reluctance to come forward. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said that he’s increasingly looking to federal authorities to get involved in cases in the city in the hopes of spurring witnesses to come forward. St. Louis Police and several federal agencies also plan to announce a new partnership next week aimed at reducing the violence in the city.

“Chicago’s homicide toll stood at 203 as of June 28, up from 171 at the same time last year, according to police stats. The city is still well below pace of 2012, when Chicago recorded more than 500 murders for the entire year.

“Meanwhile, Houston Police reported 73 murders in the first quarter of 2015, compared with 46 during the same period last year. The police department for the fourth-largest U.S. city has yet to release its murder tally for the second quarter of 2015.

“Minneapolis had 22 murders in the first half of 2015, compared with 15 during the same period last year.

“In Washington, D.C., the homicide count stands at 73 compared with 62 last year.”

The L.A. Times reports that “Crime surged across Los Angeles in the first six months of this year despite a campaign by the Los Angeles Police Department to place more officers on the streets and target certain types of offenses. Los Angeles recorded a 12.7% increase in overall crime, ending more than a decade of declines and raising concerns about what more officials can do to reverse the trend.”

REASONS

Why has crime made a comeback throughout the nation?  Some believe it may have much to do with anti-police rhetoric. In New York City, for example, has an outstanding police force renowned for both exceptional efficiency and fairness. Despite that, the Big Apple’s current Mayor, Bill De Blasio campaigned using anti-police rhetoric. The state governor has urged his attorney general to pursue cases involving police shootings. Homicides in New York have risen in 2015.

Heather MacDonald, writing in the New York Times, notes “One possible explanation is that officers have become reluctant to engage in proactive policing because of the vitriol they have faced over the last nine months, a hypothesis based on interviews with officers, the observations of commanders, and past experience. The claim, frequently repeated in the media, that police routinely kill young black men has led to riots, sometimes violent protests and attacks on officers… In November, Chief Sam Dotson of the St. Louis Police referred to the “Ferguson effect”: officers backing away from discretionary enforcement under charges of racism, thereby emboldening criminals. At that point, arrests in St. Louis city and county had dropped a third since the August shooting of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson. Homicides in the city had surged 47 percent and robberies in the county were up 82 percent. In Baltimore, arrests dropped 56 percent this May since the protests and riots over the death of Freddie Gray, while shootings so far this year are up more than 60 percent compared to the same period last year.”

CNN reported: “One obvious difference between last year and this year is the tensions between police officers and certain communities. The high-profile instances of police officers killing unarmed black men stirred outrage and protests.There is an understanding that somehow things have changed — or must change — in a post-Michael Brown, post-Freddie Gray, post-Eric Garner America.The debate on whether police reform is needed or whether more aggressive policing is necessary is often political. The early 2015 murder statistics are providing evidence for both sides.

“If there’s a national mood that starts to see police as the bad guys, the police as the enemy responsible for these problems, it makes it a hell of a lot harder to police,” said Peter Moskos, a former Baltimore police officer and professor of policing. “One way that cops deal with that is that they just stop policing those people.”

“A former New York Police Department officer, Bill Stanton, agreed that an uptick in crime can be linked to police being less assertive. When you take away police pride and you take away giving them the benefit of the doubt … and you’re going to call them racist and you’re going to prosecute them for doing nothing wrong,” Stanton said, “then what happens is they’re going to roll back. They’re not going to go that extra mile.”

Illegal Immigration may be a factor

The increase in illegal immigration may also play a role.  Infowars notes that “Unfortunately, our current policy is allowing hordes of lawless young men to come flooding into this country, and as a result gang membership is absolutely exploding. The FBI says that there are approximately 1.4 million gang members in the United States at this point, and that number has risen by an astounding 40 percent just since 2009…And these gangs are starting to gain a stranglehold on communities all over the nation…According to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center,  Mexican drug cartels were actively operating in 50 different U.S. cities in 2006.  By 2010, that number had skyrocketed to 1,286.”

The Center for Immigration Studies has reported that:

“A review of internal ICE metrics for 2013 reveals that hundreds of thousands of deportable aliens who were identified in the interior of the country were released instead of removed under the administration’s sweeping “prosecutorial discretion” guidelines. In 2013, ICE reported 722,000 encounters with potentially deportable aliens, most of whom came to their attention after incarceration for a local arrest. Yet ICE officials followed through with immigration charges for only 195,000 of these aliens, only about one-fourth. According to ICE personnel, the vast majority of these releases occurred because of current policies that shield most illegal aliens from enforcement, not because the aliens turned out to have legal status or were qualified to stay in the United States.

Many of the aliens ignored by ICE were convicted criminals. In 2013, ICE agents released 68,000 aliens with criminal convictions, or 35 percent of all criminal aliens they reported encountering. The criminal alien releases typically occur without formal notice to local law enforcement agencies and victims.

These findings raise further alarm over the Obama administration’s pending review of deportation practices, which reportedly may further expand the administration’s abuse of “prosecutorial discretion”. Interior enforcement activity has already declined 40 percent since the imposition of “prosecutorial discretion” policies in 2011.1 Rather than accelerating this decline, there is an urgent need to review and reverse the public safety and fiscal harm cause by the president’s policies.

Key Findings

  • In 2013, ICE charged only 195,000, or 25 percent, out of 722,000 potentially deportable aliens they encountered. Most of these aliens came to ICE’s attention after incarceration for a local arrest.
  • ICE released 68,000 criminal aliens in 2013, or 35 percent of the criminal aliens encountered by officers. The vast majority of these releases occurred because of the Obama administration’s prosecutorial discretion policies, not because the aliens were not deportable.
  • ICE targeted 28 percent fewer aliens for deportation from the interior in 2013 than in 2012, despite sustained high numbers of encounters in the Criminal Alien and Secure Communities programs.
  • Every ICE field office but one reported a decline in interior enforcement activity, with the largest decline in the Atlanta field office, which covers Georgia and the Carolinas.
  • ICE reports that there are more than 870,000 aliens on its docket who have been ordered removed, but who remain in defiance of the law.
  • Under current policies, an alien’s family relationships, political considerations, attention from advocacy groups, and other factors not related to public safety can trump even serious criminal convictions and result in the termination of a deportation case.
  • Less than 2 percent of ICE’s caseload was in detention at the end of fiscal year 2013.
  • About three-fourths of the aliens ICE detained in 2013 had criminal and/or immigration convictions so serious that the detention was required by statute. This suggests the need for more detention capacity, so ICE can avoid releasing so many deportable criminal aliens.”

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