JACKSON — Finally, a little sanity in Mississippi’s treatment of those who struggle with temporary or permanent insanity and other forms of mental illness.

Why? Because civilized people don’t make a practice of locking mental patients in jail for the “crime” of being mentally ill.

Finally, Gov. Haley Barbour stepped up and joined Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck and House Speaker Billy McCoy in doing right by the state’s mental patients who have languished in county jails because of the indifference of state government.

On Monday, Barbour signed House Bill 210 into law, which will beginning July 1 fully fund the state’s seven mental health crisis centers and the Specialized Treatment Facility for juveniles mental patients in Harrison County for the first time since the centers were constructed.

The centers were conceived and constructed as facilities to treat the mentally ill who would otherwise be warehoused in county jails when their families are unable to care for them at home and the state’s mental hospitals are full.

In 1999, the Legislature issued $20 million in bonds to build seven mental health crisis centers. Since then, funds for operation of the facilities have been a political football.

The first center opened in Corinth in 2001 and for the last two years has had all 16 beds available for use. But five other centers in the Delta and Central Mississippi, open since 2004, have only had funding for eight of 16 beds available for patients.

House Bill 210 provided $13.8 million in operating funds for the centers from the general fund, $4.3 million from the Crisis Intervention Mental Health Fund and $876,507 from the Health Care Expendable Trust Fund and authorizes 385 staff positions to operate the facilities.

Mississippi taxpayers have since 1999 funded construction of seven 16-bed mental health crisis centers in Batesville, Brookhaven, Laurel, Grenada, Newton, Cleveland and Corinth. Five centers were constructed and furnished — and have stood empty. The Brookhaven center has not been constructed.

State Department of Finance and Administration Executive Director J.K. “Hoopy” Stringer said Tuesday that in response to the Legislature providing full funding for the crisis centers, DFA would let contracts “within the next 10 days” to begin construction of the Brookhaven facility.

For another $10 million, state taxpayers built the 48-bed Specialized Treatment Facility for juvenile court-committed mental patients in Gulfport.

After constructing the crisis mental health centers, the Legislature failed to appropriate operating funds for the facilities until a Clarion-Ledger investigation of the closed facilities was published in the spring of 2004.

Lawmakers agreed after public protest in the 2004 regular session to fund the seven centers around the state with $12.5 million, enough to run them at half capacity. Five mental health crisis centers were funded for half operations in September 2004 — Cleveland, Newton, Grenada, Laurel and Batesville. The Corinth center was fully funded.

Clearly, Lt. Gov. Tuck’s leadership in 2005 and 2006 on this issue has been crucial in finishing the work of providing full funding for these needed facilities.

That Barbour set aside other political differences with Tuck to sign House Bill 210 into law speaks well of his concern both for the mentally ill and for the insanity of leaving mental health treatment beds built at taxpayer expense empty for the lack of operating funds while patients suffer in jail cells.



Sid Salter of Forest is Perspective editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. Contact him at (601) 961-7084 or ssalter@clarionledger.com.