By Ida Brown

ibrown@themeridianstar.com



Not every person who commits a crime is a criminal.

Some have committed offenses due to states of mind or behavior caused by a brain disorder, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other severe mental illnesses.

"Across the United States, many times our jails and prisons have more people with mental illness than our state hospitals. It's really a national tragedy, it's a shame," said Leon Evans, president/CEO of the Center for Health Care Services in San Antonio, Texas.

However, criminalization of people with severe mental illnesses could be reduced if people who come into contact with people with such problems, particularly law enforcement, were trained to recognize these illnesses.

Evans will discuss his work in this area this week at the Community Conversations town hall meeting "Improving the Interaction of Individuals with Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System" at Kahlmus Auditorium on the MSU-Meridian Campus. The program is hosted by the Meridian Affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), with support from Eli Lilly and Company.

"We're trying to put together a task force to address some of the issues surrounding mentally ill people coming into contact with the criminal justice system," said Kristen Owen, LPC, president of NAMI-Meridian Affiliate and an adult therapist at Weems Community Mental Health Center.

"There are various reasons why it happens. Sometimes it's because of their mental illness and there's no place for them to go, and sometimes it's because of their behavior that they get arrested over and over again," Owen said. "They are in that cycle where rather than treatment, they end up in jail."The recently organized task force is a conglomerate of representatives of the city and county law enforcement, mental health agencies and court systems.

"We're all at the same table and we're all exchanging ideas and trying to come up with ways to close the gap in the system," Owen said. "There hasn't been the best communication – even with people moving back and forth between the jail system and the mental health system."

Evans not only has helped transform the system in Texas, but also has created new ways to divert people out of the prison and jail systems and back into treatment.

Prior to his current position, Evans served as director of community services for the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. It was then that he noticed that the prisons and jails were filling up with mental illness, and most of them were there for non-violent offenses and were not being treated.

"I started working on that problem there and when I came to San Antonio, I was able to work with our county judge, our mayor, the police chief, the sheriff, and families and consumers," Evans said.

"We started this collaboration and over the last eight years we've been able to train law enforcement officers to recognize people in psychiatric crisis and develop a crisis-stable station unit where people can be brought, rather than taken to jail or emergency rooms," he said.

"That's matured today to where we're actually diverting about 1,000 people a month who used to go to jail or emergency rooms. It's also had a huge impact on the homeless."

From this has resulted a lot of research, as well as two independent economic analysis to show cost benefit help saving the taxpayers money, and where individuals are not being criminalized because of their illness.

During his presentation, Evans said he will help to improve communications between law enforcement and mental health professionals, and how they support one another.

"Often there's a problem with communication and sharing it; we don't speak the same language, much less support each other," he said. "But through community collaborations, we (in San Antonio) have actually been able to come together and start improving how we communicate with each other and how we support each other."

Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie agrees that such collaborations are crucial.

"Correctional facilities, detention facilities and jails are not designed or manned to take care of patients," he said. "It causes a dilemma statewide for every sheriff who is bound to house someone who's deemed a patient, and not a criminal."

Sollie said a list of persons who, over the last six to seven years, have repeatedly been incarcerated and are patients instead of criminals will be presented at the town hall meeting.

"We hope that this will continue to educate the public that there is a need of care and treatment versus incarceration," Sollie said.

Owen said it is important that residents take an active role in this town meeting.

"Some people may think, 'This doesn't affect me at all.' But when you think about how many people we have in our community, with East Mississippi here and the other mental health organization, there's a large percentage of people in our community who deal with mental illness," she said.

"When we're talking about taxpayers' money – housing people in the jail – it's so much more cost-effective to get people the treatment that they need," Owen said.







Want to go?



What: Community Conversations town hall meeting "Improving the Interaction of Individuals with Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System"

When: Thursday, from 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m.

Where: Kahlmus Auditorium on the MSU-Meridian Campus, 1000 Hwy. 19 North

peaker: Leon Evans, president/CEO of the Center for Health Care Services in San Antonio, Texas

Admission: Free; open to the public.

Additional information: A certificate for 1.5 contact hours is available upon request. For more information, contact Kristen Owen: (601)483-4821 or namimeridian@gmail.com





About NAMI



What is NAMI?

NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the nation’s largest grassroots organization for people with mental illness and their families. Founded in 1979, NAMI has affiliates in every state and in more than 1,100 local communities across the country.



What is the NAMI mission?

NAMI is dedicated to the eradication of mental illnesses and to the improvement of the quality of life for persons of all ages who are affected by mental illnesses.



What does NAMI do?

NAMI members and friends work to fulfill our mission by providing support, education, and advocacy. Our many activities include:



Public Education and

Information Activities

• NAMI's Web site www.nami.org receives more than 5.4 million visitors a year who turn to NAMI for information, referral, and education;

• NAMI's Helpline (1-800-950-6264) is staffed by a dedicated team and serves over 4,000 callers per month.



Peer Education and

Support

• NAMI Educational Programs (Family-to-Family, Peer-to-Peer, NAMI Connection, Hearts and Minds, and more) provide critical education to help consumers and family members gain knowledge and skills for living successfully with mental illness.

• Support Groups are provided through many of NAMI's state and local affiliates and offer invaluable connections with peers who understand the challenges and joys of living with mental illness.



Raising Awareness and Fighting Stigma

• NAMIWalks is a signature NAMI event that draws thousands of concerned citizens every year who walk together in over sixty communities across the nation to raise money and awareness about mental illness.

•StigmaBusters responds to inaccurate and hurtful language and portrayals of mental illness in the media and promotes understanding and respect for those who live with mental illness.

• In Our Own Voice presents deeply personal and moving journeys of recovery by consumers living with mental illness.



State and Federal Advocacy

• NAMI Advocacy provides a key voice for state and federal public and private-sector policies that facilitate research, end discrimination, reduce barriers to successful life in the community and promote timely, comprehensive and effective mental health services and supports.

• NAMI Action Centers, include the Children & Adolescent Action Center, and Law and Criminal Justice Action Center, the Multicultural Action Center, and the STAR (Consumer Support Technical Assistance Resource) Center. NAMI's Action Centers advocate for unique populations and develop and disseminate inofrmation to meet specific needs.