Justice for the Mentally Ill
Tom Lane is the current Chair of the NAMI
National Consumer Council Executive Committee. He was just hired by NAMI to head
up the Office of Consumer Affairs. He is a brilliant leader and a good friend. I
am pleased to share his story with you, so that you might know him better.
AT:
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/dailynews/crime_mentalillness020611.html
Justice for Mentally Ill
Group Wants to End Vicious Circle That Keeps Returning Mentally Ill to Jail
By Bryan Robinson
June 11 - Years before becoming an advocate for the mentally ill, a suicidal Tom
Lane was surrounded by armed police, contemplating whether he should force the
officers to kill him - and none of the law enforcement officials seemed to know
it.
In July 1997, Lane, a cabinetmaker who was a recovering alcoholic and substance
abuser, was suffering from severe depression. A head injury from a construction
accident left him suffering from seizures and unable to work. Despondent, he
called a suicide hotline from his trailer home in Northern California. When he
could not guarantee the hotline operator that he would not harm himself, police
were dispatched to his residence and he found himself surrounded. "I had hidden
my .357 [Magnum] inside my travel trailer. They asked me to come out and show my
hands. I could see the laser from one of the officers tracing me from 15 feet
away," Lane said. "I really contemplated doing something to make these officers
do something to me, a suicide-by-cop kind of thing."
Police did not kill Lane, but he did not receive immediate counseling for his
depression, either. Lane, who is considered legally blind, recalled being thrown
and dragged on the gravel outside his home to a police car. His glasses were
broken and he was thrown in jail, where police refused to let him take his
anti-seizure medication. Lane was hospitalized after he began suffering two
seizures a day. Upon release from the hospital, he still suffered from
depression and did not receive the any recommendation for treatment for mental
illness. He soon began sleeping in the bushes outside the hospital. Lane was
able to call his mother collect from a pay phone and his family found him and
brought him to New Mexico. Once he was receiving treatment and was back on his
feet, Lane became an advocate for the mentally ill. Now living in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., Lane, 42, has been instrumental in forming peer counseling
groups for people suffering from mental illness. He has focused on their
problems in dealing with law enforcement. And he helped contribute ideas to the
Criminal Justice-Mental Health Consensus Project, a two-year bipartisan
collaboration by the Council of State Governments with law enforcement
officials, criminal justice officials and mental health advocates and consumers
that will present a report at hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee
today.
The Mentally Ill's Revolving Crime Door
The report is designed to help state and local government officials who are
dealing with the significant number of people with mental illness in prison or
jail. The Justice Department estimates that 16 percent of the people
incarcerated in America suffer from mental illness.
"When on any given day there are more people with mental illness in the Los
Angeles County Jail than in any state hospital or private facility in the United
States, it's time to agree we have a major problem," said Ron Honberg, director
of legal affairs for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
The report makes 46 recommendations, from training officers better to handle
initial encounters with the mentally ill, to ensuring that the mentally ill
receive the treatment and counseling they need upon release to prevent their
return to jail.
"Every day, police officers encounter individuals and situations in which
untreated mental illness has resulted in behaviors that generate a citizen
complaint or disorderly behavior," said Robert K. Olson, president of Police
Executive Research Forum and chief of the Minneapolis Police Department.
"My officers know we can better serve individuals with mental illnesses without
risking public safety." he said. "This report shows police how to work with all
stakeholders using models and principles they can tailor to their own community
- approaches that will minimize the costs in human lives, dignity and police
resources."
Avoiding Deadly Decisions
Olson said he became involved in the Consensus Project because in the course of
his 37-year career, he found that hundreds of people with mental illnesses were
killed by police who he said were not trained to handle special situations
properly. To save lives, Olson said, his department developed methods to better
prepare his officers for encounters with disturbed people.
In Minneapolis, Olson said, some police are specially trained to assess
situations involving people suspected of suffering from mental illness. Olson
said his officers are also being trained to use less-than-lethal methods when
dealing with the mentally ill, such as stun guns. Olson and the Consensus
Project also recommend the use of mobile crisis intervention teams to assess and
defuse explosive situations, and police protocols for handling people with
mental illness.
"Before [the reforms], we were not trained normally to deal with people with
mental illness," Olson said. "We're not psychiatrists; we're cops. ... There
were a lot of people - hundreds - with some kind of mental illness we later
learned about who were getting killed or wounded needlessly. And I thought that
there must be a better way for us to serve the community and not make deadly
decisions with the mentally ill. My hope is that other state and local
governments could perhaps adapt our model, what we're doing here and conform it
to fit the particular needs of their community."
Olson also favors - and the Consensus Project recommends - a database that
documents incidents between the mentally ill and police to keep law enforcement
officials accountable, track repeat offenders and to help prevent mentally ill
people from returning to prison.
Hopeful for New Legislation and Collaboration
Lane realizes he was lucky that police did not grant his suicide wish. Many
people who suffer from mental illness are undiagnosed, refuse treatment or don't
have relatives to look after them or are unable to help them. And often, as in
Lane's case, they are refused medical treatment or mishandled by officials. That
makes them more likely to have repeated encounters with police.
"Mentally ill people are more likely to have encounters with law enforcement,"
Lane said. "They attract attention when they act out and they're more likely to
return to prison because they and police don't know they have an illness or they
refuse treatment. When they're released, they're still undiagnosed and poor and
more likely to return to prison. We've got to have more innovative solutions and
better collaborations between law enforcement and mental health experts after
the mentally ill are discharged. I just hope the report is a tool, an instrument
of change."
Based on the findings of the report, the Consensus Project hopes congressional
leaders will introduce legislation that will enable communities to adapt some of
the recommendations of the report and perpetuate better understanding of the
mentally ill in the criminal justice system, a problem some believe has been
long overlooked. "This is a complex problem that Congress should examine," said
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "If we are going to help our law enforcement officers
reduce crime, we need to stop the revolving door of arrest, release, and
re-arrest that is so common for mentally ill offenders."
Drawing Inspiration
A better understanding of the mentally ill is a good beginning, law enforcement
officials say. But recognizing a need for collaboration between police and
mental health professionals is the key. "Awareness is always a good thing,"
Olson said. "There have been literally hundreds of deaths when a system that was
supposed to protect them [the mentally ill] failed them. There has to be
coordination and collaboration that involves law enforcement, mental health
professionals, and the courts."
Meanwhile, Lane is dealing with his mental illness and seems to be winning. As
late as 1999, he said almost killed himself during a bout with severe depression
when he overdosed on prescribed medication. Today, as a survivor of a suicide
attempt and an encounter with police who did not fully understand his condition,
Lane hopes that some of his peers will learn and be empowered by his story. In
July, he said he will begin a new job as director of consumer affairs for the
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
"I'm managing to manage the illness instead of having the illness mismanage me,"
Lane said. "I just want to get the word out and if people draw some kind of
inspiration from my story, then I'm happy."
