(6-4-18) Without being charged or having committed a crime, can you be incarcerated in a maximum security U.S. prison, kept in a cell 23 hours per day, held in solitary confinement, shot with a taser by correctional officers, and locked up indefinitely if you are an American citizen?

The answer is “yes,” if you have a mental illness and live in New Hampshire.

Frankie Berger, the Treatment Advocacy Center’s director of advocacy, tipped me off last week about the case of Andrew Butler.

“The state does not have a secure wing on their state hospital,” she summarized in an email, “so people who are civilly committed as a danger to themselves or others – people who have not committed or been charged with any crimes, male and female – are being sent to the men’s maximum security prison. They are given prison numbers and uniforms, treated like prisoners, and the whole thing is unconstitutional.”

How is this possible today?

Because the New Hampshire legislature doesn’t want to pay the cost of creating a secure unit in its state mental hospital, so it passed legislation in the 1980s making it legal to send anyone with a mental illness who becomes psychotic and violent to the state’s maximum security prison – even though there is no accredited mental hospital unit there to treat them.

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(5-31-18)  From My Files Friday: I realized today that this is the 1,126th blog that I’ve posted.  I wrote this in May 2012.  

Musings on a flight home from Denver

What is home?

I spent most of my childhood in Colorado.  When I moved to the Washington D.C. area and people asked me about my hometown, I always mentioned Fowler. It is a small town in Southeastern Colorado where I graduated from high school and where my sister, who died in an automobile accident there, is buried. (Since writing this, both of my parents have passed and are buried there too.)

Yet, I haven’t lived in Fowler since 1970.

I remember hearing Vance Packard speak in the early 1970s about how mobility for jobs was making it difficult for many Americans to choose where they intended to be buried. A grim topic, but evidence of how many of us move several times during our lives. The old family plots – in some rural areas located on individual farms – no longer were the norm. We had become a nation of nomads, he said.

This got me thinking on a recent trip to Colorado about the definition of home. I had returned there to speak at an event held by Bayaud Enterprises in Denver.

Please stay with me a moment while I tell you a bit about Bayaud Enterprises.Click to continue…

(5-28-18) On Memorial Day we celebrate our veterans who died for us and our country.

I not only think about veterans but all those who have died and are dying because of a mental illness and our refusal to help them in their daily battles with brain disorders. Consider this email that I received from a mother this week.

Dear Pete,

I am happy to read that your son is doing well. My son, Art Anthony Hargreaves,  died last month from complications caused by his schizophrenia and diabetes. Alone in his little government studio apartment. He refused to go to a group home stating, “They’re illegal.” His case manager and others said there was nothing they could do. We were waiting on me trying to become his guardian. It just all moves too slow. Time ran out.  I miss my son.

Only those who have walked this walk truly understand. I kept telling his case manager that I was so afraid I might get a phone call informing me that my son Art had died. Art was such a sweet soul. Schizophrenia took his brain, than his body, but never his Soul, his love of nature and animals, and dare I say his Mom. I was in ICU recovering from a stroke-at my weakest, when Art left this world, and when I received the news.

Would you help me get word out about the Harvard Brain Bank for research on Mental Illness.  My son, and my whole family are donors. Unfortunately they could not harvest my son’s brain for research as the body must be quickly refrigerated and there is only a 3 hour window of time to do this. I did call Harvard Research Center and strongly suggested they put that information on donor cards…in case of death. 

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(5-25-18) I had no idea.

I’ve known for years that Joanna Walker was a tireless advocate in Northern Virginia for individuals with mental illnesses. What I didn’t know until I attended a recent This Is My Brave  performance was that she had once been depressed and suicidal. Nor was I aware that she was a talented signer who chose to tell her story both with words and by singing a poignant original song.

On Another Day was written by her daughter, Emily. 

Thank you Joanna and Emily for sharing your talents. And thank you, Jennifer Marshall and This Is My Brave for continuing to offer opportunities to individuals with mental disorders to share their personal recovery stories!

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Twenty year anniversary in prison for a crime with a recommended eleven years maximum.

Sana, Christopher, and James (step father). Christopher has spent twenty years in prison for a crime with a recommended maximum eleven year sentence. He has paranoid schizophrenia. 

(Update:  Just to be clear, the Treatment Advocacy Center, which encourages everyone to sign the Sharikas-Campbell family petition calling for Christopher to be pardoned by the governor, has a helpful tool that allows residents of Virginia – and only residents of Virginia — to send a letter to Governor Northam urging him to take action. So, if you live in Virginia, please do so. It’s quick and easy. And if you live outside of Virginia, by all means, please sign the petition  to show your support. Sorry for the confusion. These are two different items – a letter for Virginians and a petition for anyone who wants to help.)

(5-22-18) The Treatment Advocacy Center has thrown its weight behind a petition drive to get Christopher Sharikas pardoned by Virginia’s governor and transferred to a state mental hospital where he can get treatment for his paranoid schizophrenia.  Hopefully, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and other organizations will join TAC’s move.

I first wrote about Christopher’s case  in September and tipped off The Washington Post. Its reporter, Rachel Weiner, wrote a detailed story about him that same month.

Here’s a quick recap.

Sana Campbell, (her first husband, Christopher’s father, is deceased and she has remarried), told me that her son began showing signs of paranoia and schizophrenia in his early teens. His untreated illness became progressively worse and when he was seventeen, voices in his head began commanding him to get to New York City.

Christopher flashed a knife at a woman, then ran away. The police showed up at his house, but no charges were filed. The next afternoon during a worsening psychotic break, Christopher pulled his knife on a 24 year-old woman and demanded her car keys.

Amy Greenwood quickly gave him the keys to her car. Christopher next demanded her purse, which she also handed over. He stabbed her in her back and fled, only to crash her car a few hours later while she was being treated.

Yes, it was a horrific crime prompted by mental illness. No one questions that or excuses it. But Christopher’s case soon took several twists, all unfavorable to the ill teenager.

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Please watch this short video about diverting persons with mental illness into treatment!

(5-18-18) I am so proud of how Fairfax County, Virginia has become a national model in diverting persons with mental illnesses into treatment rather than having them languish in jail.

For eight years after my book was published, I would return to my home county embarrassed after visiting communities that had embraced Crisis Intervention Team training, problem solving dockets, the sequential intercept model and post release programs.

I was frustrated and ashamed because there was little interest or support for any of these programs in Fairfax.

That’s no longer true.

Now because of collaboration and inspired leadership by our Board of Supervisors, Sheriff, Police Chief and other elected officials, a major cultural shift has happened.

Now when I give a speech, I brag about how Fairfax County has become a leader in mental health reform!

We still need to work on building supportive housing. We still need to push for expanding problem solving dockets (mental health and drug courts). We now need our judges and prosecutors to understand that individuals charged with both misdemeanors and felonies should be eligible for diversion because it is not the crime that should be the determining factor but whether or not the accused has a criminogenic personality. (Persons with chronic, serious mental illnesses often get charged with felony assault for resisting arrest.)

But the change in Fairfax has been breathtaking.

If your community leaders are unaware about the national Stepping Up initiative, you need to  copy and send them the video posted above. Tell them that diversion is not only a way to end the inappropriate incarceration of persons who are sick but also a smarter way to spend precious public tax resources.

Congratulations Fairfax County!

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