Juveniles Sent To Jail Ten Times More Likely To Be Trapped In System: Diversion Works Yet Some Virginia Legislators Still Skeptical

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"Voices from Juvenile Detention: Kids Behind Bars" It sounds harmless: “pre-trial detention.” But the reality is far different. In a squat block building in Laredo, Texas—and in similar places around the nation—children await trial or placement in concrete cells while the underlying issues that led to their behavior fester. Some are addicts who need treatment; others are kids battling mental illnesses. Many are angry and have been virtually abandoned by absentee or irresponsible parents. Some spend a few days, others months, but despite the efforts of a small corps of dedicated professionals, few actually receive treatment for the issues that brought them to Juvenile. /// Inmates, ages 10-16, wait in line to march back to their cells in the exercise yard at the Webb County Juvenile Detention facility. This is the world of young felons, of kids gone astray, of children who cry for their mothers from behind bars. Some have skipped class too much, some have murdered in cold blood. At least half of the kids have been incarcerated before. And, if society's attempts at rehabilitation ultimately fail--or if the parent can't or simply won't do anything to turn around years of neglect and abuse--just a few more visits to juvenile detention will harden some of these kids into full-fledged adult criminals.

“Voices from Juvenile Detention: Kids Behind Bars”(see note at end of blog about this photo.)

(7-12-16) Authorities used to claim that a good way to straighten out a troubled youth was to put him in jail for a few days to scare him straight. But last night at a meeting about jail diversion, a Fairfax County, Virginia court services director said that putting a troubled juvenile in jail makes it ten times more likely that he will continue being caught up in the criminal justice system.

By contrast, Bob Bermingham Jr. said Fairfax County recently diverted 20 kids, who were considered low risk offenders, from being locked up into treatment services. Only one re-offended. Bermingham added that up to 60% of juveniles being held in detention centers have a mental illness.

Bermingham told an audience of about seventy attendees at a meeting of my local county’s Diversion First program that the juvenile court system by statute looks for ways to keep juveniles out of the criminal justice system because criminalizing them does more harm than good. Unfortunately, during the generally upbeat meeting it soon became clear that some Virginia elected officials simply don’t understand that this same principle applies when an offender is an adult with a mental illness or addiction problem.

More on that later, but first the good news.

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She’s In Jail: A Frustrated Mother Chronicles Her Daughter’s Descent. She Needed Help, Not Punishment.

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(7-11-16 Every week, I receive emails from parents seeking help. Most have an adult child who has been arrested because of an alleged criminal act clearly related to a mental illness. Sharon Giaccio has been keeping a detailed account, adapted here, of her family’s ongoing struggle to help her adult daughter. Sadly, this still unfolding story is all too familiar to many of us.) 

DAUGHTER’S MENTAL ILLNESS “HI-JACKED” HER LIFE

My daughter is in jail today.

Mental illness stole her from us. It also caused her to lose herself. 

We never imagined this could happen when she left for Catholic University in Washington D.C.  I remember exactly when it began. On March 3, 2010, we were called by a Student Health psychologist at the school where she was a third year student.

The caller was blunt:  “Your daughter is catatonic and needs to be hospitalized.”

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I Tell My Story At White House Summit Held To Encourage Jail Diversion

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President Obama listens to inmates during a discussion at a federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
(7-8-16) I was asked recently to speak at the White House about the problems that I encountered trying to get help for my son, Kevin, when he had a mental breakdown. I was the closing speaker for a summit held to encourage jail diversion. What follows is the White House news release.)

Launching the Data-Driven Justice Initiative: Disrupting the Cycle of Incarceration

By Lynn Overmann, Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer

Today, America’s largest mental health facilities are often our local jails. With seven times more people with mental health problems in jails or prison than there are in mental health treatment facilities, local police, emergency medical teams, and jails across our Nation have become the front lines for people in mental health crisis, and, too often, the only response. While local police and sheriff’s departments are increasingly teaching their officers how to safely and effectively respond to people in crisis, law enforcement alone cannot solve the complex social, medical, and behavioral health issues of some of our Nation’s most vulnerable people.

Last summer, in a speech to the NAACP, President Obama said:

“[O]ur criminal justice system isn’t as smart as it should be. It’s not keeping us as safe as it should be. It is not as fair as it should be. Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do something about it.”

To answer the President’s call, and building on the Administration’s work to reform the criminal justice system and increase access to mental health and substance abuse treatment, we are proud to launch the White House Data-Driven Justice Initiative (DDJ) with communities across the country. Today, a diverse, bipartisan coalition of 67 city, county, and State governments — supported by non-profit organizations, private sector companies, foundations and universities — have begun sharing solutions that are having significant impact in reducing jail populations, and are committing to expand and scale these innovations. One local innovation driving dramatic change is the way several jurisdictions are using data to identify and divert people with mental illness out of the criminal justice system and into coordinated care in their communities.

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Red Flags: Warnings Signs of Violence That You Should Know

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(7-8-16) Dear Pete,  In your recent blog post, “Violence and Mental Illness: An Uncomfortable Subject But A Grim Reality For Some Families,” there are frequent references to “warning signs.” Please tell us what all the warning signs are. –K. Y.

I passed this email request to  my friend and fellow advocate Doris Fuller, Chief of Research and Public Affairs at the Treatment Advocacy Center, who wrote poignantly and eloquently in the Washington Post about her own daughter’s illness and eventual suicide. Here is her thoughtful reply. 

Red Flags for Family Violence

Risk factors

Most people with serious mental illness are not violent. However, a small percentage not being treated may be violent toward family members or others. According to Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual, the three most important predictors of violence are:

  • Past history or threats of violence, against family members or others;
  • Concurrent alcohol or drug abuse; and
  • Failure to take prescribed antipsychotic medications.

Additional risk factors that have been found to be significant are:

  • Being 20 to 35 years old
  • Delusions of being persecuted, watched or attacked (“paranoia”)
  • “Command hallucinations” that order the person to engage in a specific behavior (e.g., hearing a “voice” that orders the person to commit a violent act to end world hunger)

As the number of risk factors present increases, risk increases.

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Exploring Family Trauma: A One Woman Show Called: Aliens, Nazis and Angels

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(7-6-16)  Mental health activist Leah Harris has written and is performing a one woman show about family trauma based, in part, on her childhood experiences with her mother who had schizophrenia. Performances begin July 9th and run until July 23rd in the Washington D.C. area. Congratulations Leah!

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The playwright with her mother and grandmother, 1977.

Why I’m Doing a One Woman Show about Inherited Family Trauma

By Leah Harris

I was raised by Jewish grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression. (I guess this makes me an honorary Baby Boomer, even though I’m technically Generation X.) My grandmother loved to tell me stories told to her by her father, my great-grandfather Max Schumacher, who emigrated from Poland to the US in   1914, and died before I was born.

“Your great-grandfather was sitting on the stoop with this little girl, and a Cossack rides by on his horse and pop! shoots the little girl in the head, killing her. He never forgot that day. Soon afterwards, he came to America. If he hadn’t, he most likely would have been killed in the Holocaust.”

“Grandma, what if the Cossack had shot great-grandpa Max instead of the little girl?”

“Well,” she’d say, “none of us would be here.” It made my head hurt to think about it too much.

As a child, I would sometimes get annoyed at my grandmother, because she told the same exact stories over and over again. I could recite them by heart. But today, I am grateful for my her storytelling. Our family stories are firmly implanted in my consciousness. They have formed the seeds for my creative work delving into the nature of trauma and memory.

The reason I was raised by my grandparents was because my single mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young adult.

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Inmate Dies After Being Arrested For Trespassing: State Officials Don’t Bother Contacting Family

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Photos by Joe Mahoney, Richmond Times Dispatch

Photos by Joe Mahoney, Richmond Times Dispatch

(7-5-16  A second prisoner with mental illness dies after being held on a minor charge in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail, which already is being sued for negligence in another troubling death. When two investigative reporters learn about this second incident, state officials stonewall, hiding behind HIPAA which they claim prevents them from releasing any information. Meanwhile, the Office of the State Inspector General and the disAbility Law Center of Virginia, which have the authority to investigate inmates deaths, stay mute.

Thankfully, Richmond Times Dispatch Reporters K. Burnell Evans and Sarah Kleiner, who have been doggedly investigating Virginia’s mental health care system, set out to learn the identity and background of this anonymous prisoner. 

Had it not been for them, it is doubtful that anyone would have bothered to learn any information about the deceased.  Their story reveals how easily it is for individuals with mental illnesses to be marginalized in Virginia. It also raises additional questions about the leadership in state agencies that are responsible for caring for Virginians with mental illnesses. 

State fails to notify family after woman dies at Central State Hospital

BY K. BURNELL EVANS AND SARAH KLEINER

Richmond Times-Dispatch July 2, 1916

DINWIDDIE, Valerie Anderson was buried as she died — quietly and alone, in the care of Central State Hospital workers.

Past the winding entrance to the hospital’s grounds near Petersburg, past the payroll building, accounts payable office and garage, her body was laid to rest June 21 in a locked cemetery bounded by shade trees and semitrailers rumbling along the northern terminus of Interstate 85.

A temporary wooden cross marks her grave. It is both peaceful and loud here, where 736 souls are buried.

Although a florist’s card at the grave marked “With deepest sympathy from Central State Hospital” bears her name, state officials at the cemetery on Friday still would not confirm the identity of the woman who died in their care on May 26, the day after she arrived from Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth.

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