strongernow
06-25-2004, 10:52 AM
Jails shouldn't be only option for help
Instead of locking up its mentally ill children, Georgia ought to provide psychological treatment.
Published on: 06/20/04
Of 29,000 children locked up in Georgia's prisons and jails each year, half are mentally ill.
The biggest tragedy in this tragic situation is that, often, jail is the only place these children can find any kind of treatment for their illness.
Georgia's mental health system is a crumbling mess with no leadership and inconsistent funding. When it comes to children, it is almost non-existent. The only reason why any help for mentally ill children is available in state youth prisons is because the federal government ordered that it be provided. Even so, those treatment programs are severely limited.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Jane Hansen chronicled the results of this horror in a hard-hitting series last week in which she revealed the stories of several boys whose behavior, clearly the result of their mental illness, had become criminal before anyone stepped in to help.
What will be done about this?
In the early 1990s, Georgia's legislative leaders had mapped out a statewide system of counseling, group therapy and psychiatric hospital beds for youths who struggled with mental illness. But those plans were lost when the state's mental health structure was decentralized into 19 regions that were given leeway to come up with their own mental health plans. Children were all but lost in the resulting piecemeal system.
The federal government says 86,000 Georgia children suffer from a mental disorder severe enough to disrupt their lives. Yet the state Department of Human Resources has only two people overseeing a system so fractured that no one knows what mental health resources are available for children across the state.
Hansen's series should trigger a level of outrage that will carry over into action by the state to bring help to these suffering children and their families.
Action to improve mental health care would also bring relief for taxpayers. The state now spends $171 million annually to incarcerate children, some as young as 7 years old. Indeed, the state has no rules against incarcerating very young children. A bill introduced to set an age limit failed in the Georgia Legislature a few years ago because of opposition by judges.
Why? "We weren't taking the position it was right or appropriate to lock up young children," said Peggy Walker, a Juvenile Court judge in Douglas County. "We were saying we don't have any other way to serve these kids."
According to a Georgia State University study, of 84 preteens locked in a youth prison or committed to the state juvenile agency in 2001, nearly three-quarters had a mental disorder. But rather than providing more help for struggling children, the state has reduced the number of children's treatment beds in state mental hospitals from 200 to 70. And while the state's budget for child mental health services has grown from $450,000 in 1989 to $47 million currently, even acutely ill children must wait months for space in a residential or outpatient program -- if they can navigate a bureaucratic maze to get accepted at all.
But there's always room in jail.
"It would be my hope," said Albert Murray, the state commissioner of juvenile justice, "that kids wouldn't have to be put in the custody of Juvenile Justice just to access mental health service."
Yet that's exactly what is happening. Not only does it push the children who are locked up toward lives of crime, but it also costs the state millions of dollars annually. Many of these children never would have gotten in legal trouble if mental health services had been available to them. Treatment that provides support to the child both in a residential setting and after he returns home can significantly lower the chances he'll wind up in jail. Keeping a mentally ill person in jail costs $50,000 a year. Community-based mental health services are significantly less expensive.
Georgia has cried poor for several years now when residents have asked for new programs. But that rings hollow when it becomes clear, as it did through Hansen's research, that a statewide, comprehensive program to provide mental health services to children would save millions of dollars off the cost of jailing those children. Lawmakers with the welfare of our most vulnerable residents in mind -- as well as an eye toward trimming costs -- should show up in January with legislation to set up such a system.
The state can't afford the consequences of doing otherwise.
Instead of locking up its mentally ill children, Georgia ought to provide psychological treatment.
Published on: 06/20/04
Of 29,000 children locked up in Georgia's prisons and jails each year, half are mentally ill.
The biggest tragedy in this tragic situation is that, often, jail is the only place these children can find any kind of treatment for their illness.
Georgia's mental health system is a crumbling mess with no leadership and inconsistent funding. When it comes to children, it is almost non-existent. The only reason why any help for mentally ill children is available in state youth prisons is because the federal government ordered that it be provided. Even so, those treatment programs are severely limited.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Jane Hansen chronicled the results of this horror in a hard-hitting series last week in which she revealed the stories of several boys whose behavior, clearly the result of their mental illness, had become criminal before anyone stepped in to help.
What will be done about this?
In the early 1990s, Georgia's legislative leaders had mapped out a statewide system of counseling, group therapy and psychiatric hospital beds for youths who struggled with mental illness. But those plans were lost when the state's mental health structure was decentralized into 19 regions that were given leeway to come up with their own mental health plans. Children were all but lost in the resulting piecemeal system.
The federal government says 86,000 Georgia children suffer from a mental disorder severe enough to disrupt their lives. Yet the state Department of Human Resources has only two people overseeing a system so fractured that no one knows what mental health resources are available for children across the state.
Hansen's series should trigger a level of outrage that will carry over into action by the state to bring help to these suffering children and their families.
Action to improve mental health care would also bring relief for taxpayers. The state now spends $171 million annually to incarcerate children, some as young as 7 years old. Indeed, the state has no rules against incarcerating very young children. A bill introduced to set an age limit failed in the Georgia Legislature a few years ago because of opposition by judges.
Why? "We weren't taking the position it was right or appropriate to lock up young children," said Peggy Walker, a Juvenile Court judge in Douglas County. "We were saying we don't have any other way to serve these kids."
According to a Georgia State University study, of 84 preteens locked in a youth prison or committed to the state juvenile agency in 2001, nearly three-quarters had a mental disorder. But rather than providing more help for struggling children, the state has reduced the number of children's treatment beds in state mental hospitals from 200 to 70. And while the state's budget for child mental health services has grown from $450,000 in 1989 to $47 million currently, even acutely ill children must wait months for space in a residential or outpatient program -- if they can navigate a bureaucratic maze to get accepted at all.
But there's always room in jail.
"It would be my hope," said Albert Murray, the state commissioner of juvenile justice, "that kids wouldn't have to be put in the custody of Juvenile Justice just to access mental health service."
Yet that's exactly what is happening. Not only does it push the children who are locked up toward lives of crime, but it also costs the state millions of dollars annually. Many of these children never would have gotten in legal trouble if mental health services had been available to them. Treatment that provides support to the child both in a residential setting and after he returns home can significantly lower the chances he'll wind up in jail. Keeping a mentally ill person in jail costs $50,000 a year. Community-based mental health services are significantly less expensive.
Georgia has cried poor for several years now when residents have asked for new programs. But that rings hollow when it becomes clear, as it did through Hansen's research, that a statewide, comprehensive program to provide mental health services to children would save millions of dollars off the cost of jailing those children. Lawmakers with the welfare of our most vulnerable residents in mind -- as well as an eye toward trimming costs -- should show up in January with legislation to set up such a system.
The state can't afford the consequences of doing otherwise.