Treatment not incarceration in Iowa
- af: Joseph M. Jason
- mottagare: NAMI and Supporters
According to a study by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Statistics, 16 percent of those incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons or more than 300,000 suffer from mental illnesses. The DOJ also estimates that the rates of youth with mental disorders in our juvenile justice facilities are even higher. Most of these individuals are not violent criminals. The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act provides resources to state and local governments to design and implement initiatives targeting people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system to increase public safety, reduce state and local spending, and improve their prospects for recovery.
People with mental illness inside the prison system should get treatment instead of incarceration. NAMI believes that persons who have committed offenses due to states of mind or behavior caused by a serious mental illness do not belong in penal or correctional institutions. Such persons require treatment, not punishment. A prison or jail is never an optimal therapeutic setting.
Daniel has not committed any violent crimes. He has high functioning autism and mental illness.
There have been repeated violations of Civil Rights and Disability Discrimination. There has been a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. There has been a failure to utilize Asperger Syndrome experts. There has been a failure to recognize severe mental illness despite being informed of this. There has been a failure to give mental health treatment while Daniel was in jail for his first 14 months. There has been violations of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution-cruel and unusual punishment. There has been a failure to recognize that all actions by Daniel Jason were motivated by high functioning autism and mental illness.
NAMI(National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) in Section 10.7 of the Public Policy Platform believes that persons who have committed offenses due to states of mind or behavior caused by a serious mental illness do not belong in penal or correctional institutions. Such persons require treatment, not punishment. A prison or jail is never an optimal therapeutic setting.
Ending the inappropriate placement of nonviolent persons with serious and persistent mental illnesses can help avoid the unnecessary construction of new correctional facilities. Departments of Corrections can better use existing facilities to house violent criminal offenders. Diverting people with mental illnesses to the mental health system when they have committed minor offenses is not only beneficial for correctional system resources and to taxpayers, it is also the most appropriate approach for achieving a positive outcome for the patient.
Incarcerating individuals with severe psychiatric disorders costs twice as much as assertive community treatment programs which have some of the most effective plans to treat the severely ill. While some jails and prisons provide adequate psychiatric services to ill inmates, many do not. And, many corrections officers receive very little training in the special problems of caring for psychiatrically ill inmates especially ones with Asperger Syndrome.
Mental illnesses are biologically based brain disorders. They cannot be overcome through "will power" and are not related to a person's "character" or intelligence. Neither the Judges or the Prosecutors that dealt with the trials of Daniel understood mental illness and/or Asperger Syndrome. They need to be educated.
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