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City must find better way of treating the mentally ill

This past February, a perfect storm of New York City’s failed policies on mental illness, homelessness, veterans services, criminal justice and corrections killed Jerome Murdough, a mentally ill, homeless former U.S. marine who was arrested and sent to Rikers Island for trespassing when he sought shelter from the winter cold in a city housing project stairwell.

He died alone, his pleas for help ignored, when the temperature in his cell exceeded 100 degrees due to malfunctioning equipment. His needless death is the shame of our city.

The rate of incarcerated mentally ill has steadily risen as access to long-term and acute care mental health services has declined. Incarceration has become the frontline response for the mentally ill, even though putting such a population behind bars is three times more costly than detaining other inmates.

Between 2005 and 2011, the number of inmates at Rikers with mental illness has increased to where today it includes nearly 40 percent of the jail’s daily population. If this rate of increase holds constant, by 2017 more than 50 percent of all inmates at Rikers would suffer from mental illness.

Veterans make up about 12 percent of the adult homeless population in the United States, and veterans are 50 percent more likely to be homeless than non-veterans. Nationwide, more than half of all homeless veterans have some sort of mental illness.

Zero tolerance policies have proven to be ineffective in confronting a growing mentally ill population, who respond erratically or with defiance to such practices. This recent ineffectiveness in disciplinary practices can account for at least some part of the 240 percent surge in violent incidents at Rikers in the last decade.

At a recent Fire and Criminal Justice Services hearing, I questioned officials from the city Department of Correction regarding how officers are trained to identify and de-escalate situations involving mentally ill inmates. Currently, state law prohibits correction officers from learning an inmate’s mental health diagnosis or treatment.

Officers coordinate with city Department of Health professionals, communicating in language that is forced to dance around a profoundly unsettling reality: Jails such as Rikers have become more than just jails, and instead serve as frontlines for dealing with the city’s mentally ill.

The challenges of administering to mentally ill people who commit criminal offenses are daunting. On the front end, the city needs to take a closer look at alternatives to placing people behind bars.

Homeless people should be offered relief from the cold, just as the mentally ill should be offered treatment. Veterans should be prioritized for affordable housing and offered services that speak to their needs. Relief should offer constructive solutions that stimulate quality of life, not detract from it.

The previous administration suggested centralized response teams that collect and relay information quickly to judges, who can then make appropriate decisions on bail and community-based treatment. Such teams would provide a more careful judgment for the mentally ill, whose sentences should be anything but black and white.

On the back end, we need to heed the advice of the president of the corrections officers union, Norman Seabrook, and better train those who police our jails — the city’s Boldest — in how to manage mentally ill inmates. Even with consideration to preserving an inmate’s privacy, knowing a diagnosis can only go so far without proper training on the implications of what a diagnosis means.

The cost of incarcerating the mentally ill, both fiscally and ethically, is too high not to quell this storm now.

Rory Lancman

City Councilman

(D-Fresh Meadows)