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Quarter of Mich. prisoners need mental health care
LANSING,
August 21, 2011 (AP): About a quarter of Michigan's 43,000 state
prisoners are mentally ill, and new Michigan Corrections
Director Dan Heyns says he wants to shift responsibility
for their treatment from his department to other agencies.
``Corrections has had a kind of mission creep over the years,''
Heyns told The Detroit News for a story published online Sunday
(http://j.mp/qC9Gbh
). ``We're doing mental health stuff, we're educators and job
trainers, you name it.
``We need to bring the Michigan Corrections Department back to
its original mission, which is corrections.''
Heyns, a former Jackson County sheriff, took over the state's
prison system in June.
He and corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said the department
would like to get away from responsibility for providing mental
health treatment, education, job training, housing and
transportation for parolees.
Mental health has become a particular burden, Heyns said.
``I've got institutions that are just packed with people who are
very, very seriously mentally ill,'' he said. ``These aren't
stress cases. I can't exactly provide a therapeutic environment.
We're struggling with that.''
Heyns said he doesn't expect he can hand off the mentally ill
prisoners he has now, but he wants to work with sheriffs,
prosecutors and other local officials to try to ensure fewer
mentally ill people come to prison.
Heyns said he understands such a change would be hard, given
factors such as the closure of mental health hospitals in the
1990s. Like him, local mental health officials are ``under the
gun to reduce costs,'' Heyns said.
Michael Vizena,
executive director of the Michigan Association of Community
Mental Health Boards, said the state's 46 boards have programs
to identify the seriously mentally ill and ``work with the local
judicial systems to develop treatment plans to divert these
persons from incarceration if appropriate.''
``Resources are always a challenge,'' especially for those who
do not have Medicaid, he said. Vizena said his members would
like to work with Heyns and others at the state level to make
improvements.
As sheriff, Heyns said he worked with the local community
college to provide educational services and he might be able to
use a similar model in his new job.
Information from: The Detroit News,
http://detnews.com/ |
