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The Forgotten Floor of Miami-Dade County Jail
I listened to a lecture by Judge Steve Leifman of the Miami-Dade County Court system, who realized five years ago that he was seeing many mentally ill people who were arrested for minor crimes like pushing a shopping court down the street (many of them were homeless), or whose family called the police, hoping to get help, only to have their loved one thrown into the slammer. People that are mentally ill stay in jail eight times longer for minor misdemeanors than other people. Often they get lost in places like “The Forgotten Floor” of Miami-Dade County jail (it’s actually four floors), because the State of Florida does not have enough psychiatric facilities to take them as a transfer. And so they stagnate in the County jail system.
Check out this video of an investigative report called “The Forgotten Floor”. It’s frightening.
Judge Leifman has taken an active role in reform, helping to create programs to divert mentally ill people who get arrested away from the criminal system and directly into treatment, and pushing the state to take responsibility for the mentally ill. Our State of Georgia has had its share of problems, with a rash of documented deaths occuring in inpatient psychiatric facilities due to neglect and over crowding. Maybe we could learn something.
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Great piece! I was a case worker for the severely and persistently mentally ill for a few years. It is frightening how little people in the mainstream understand mental illness. More frightening still, is the plight of those at the mercy of uncaring bureaucracies whose bottom line is the almighty dollar.
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The unfortunate reality is that many state mental institutions are not any better.
Mental Health Courts are built upon a forced drugging model and medical modality that can subvert due process and deny basic rights in far to many cases.
Example; found guilty of petty thief – probation or very short jail term.
Example; found guilty of being mentally ill – the sentence can be of in-determinant length, while you are incarcerated behind locked doors (just like jail) and force treated.
Doug, you deserve the blog award for this site.
I have nominated you on the link below.
http://dudesdownunder.weebly.com/2/post/2010/07/i-have-some-great-friends.html
Good article. I can tell you from my one experience is that a forced mental hospital stay is also a lot like been in jail and having them throw away the key. Being slammed down by 5 people and having psych meds injected against your will is terrorizing and the nurses want the experience to be bad, intentionally, so you will not be a repeat visitor on release. I have felt I have PTSD from my hospitalization. I was repeatedly locked in a tiny room which it turned out had no ventilation when they turned off the light so after I used the air, I would have to lie on the floor to try to suck a little air from the tiny space under the door. I thought I would die in that room. Now I can’t be in a car without windows open when air gets hot and thick. Awful.
Anyway I stopped by to give you this:
“The July issue of Consumer Reports includes a survey of more than 1,500 readers about the therapies and drugs that helped their depression, anxiety or both (all those surveyed had sought professional help).” Great because reports of drug side effects are higher than drug companies report:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/july/health/depression-anxiety/overview/index.htm