EDITORIAL: Support U.S. House's mental health care reform
The issue is the huge number of people with serious mental illnesses who wind up in jail, and usually in jails woefully ill-equipped to treat their condition ("Locked out," Page A1, Nov. 1).
And the news:
Surprisingly, it's good news. And what a welcome development that is for an issue that poses such a tough policy challenge.
The news is that reforming America's mental health system is one of those rare issues that actually has bipartisan support in
In fact, mark-up of the bill actually begins in the House today.
The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act already boasts 158 co-sponsors. They include 45
Those co-sponsors include both Reps.
Minnesotans and North Dakotans likewise should rally, while taking heart in this example of the political process at work.
The bill "is the most far-reaching and serious attempt at mental-health reform in recent memory," write Drs.
That's because the bill reins in the policy "over-reaches" that helped bring about the current problems.
For example, a big reason why there are "10 times as many mentally ill people in jails and prisons as there are in hospital beds," as the physicians acknowledge, is the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill that began in the 1960s and 1970s.
Two movements put thousands of Americans with serious mental illnesses in homeless shelters and in jails, rather than in long-term treatment. The first was the closure of most of the nation's mental hospitals.
The second was the civil-rights effort that now prevents the involuntary commitment of any but the most threatening people with serious mental illnesses.
AOT is "aimed at individuals who have an established pattern of falling into a spiral of self-neglect, self-harm or dangerousness when off medication. ... Data from multiple AOT programs indicate they reduce crime, violence (including suicide attempts) and victimization of the mentally ill when diligently enforced."
Likewise, a 1965 law blocks
The bill has the support of the
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