Proposed TX legislation looks to divert mentally ill from prisons...compassionate cost savings? [View all]

In the article below a R-state senator suggests that this diversion will reduce daily expenses on each of the diverted prisoners to $12 per day, a savings of $125 per day for each mentally ill prisoner diverted back to the street.

What's missing in this calculus?

How seriously mentally ill are these hundreds of people whose capacity to function in society has them cycling into prison once every 5 months or so? Frequent arrests (5 prison sentences is frequent, isn't it?) shows up on Global Functional Assessments (as in the FL mGFA m-GAF (R) - adapted in 2004 by the Florida DCF Functional Assessment Workgroup from the original M-GAF reported by S. Caldecott-Hazard & R.C.W. Hall, 1995) at the score of 50, the break-point for considering patient institutionalization. That level of function is characterized as indicative of "Serious Symptoms or Serious Impairment"

Can such problems REALLY be dealt with at a cost of $12 per day? An hour of therapy in most metropolitan areas is more than $100. Likewise low cost pharmaceuticals like generic SSRI antidepressants could run $44 per month.

Paint me skeptical, this sounds rather too good to be true.

I find it challenging to believe that a mentally ill adult with serious symptoms or impairments in function, who the senator characterizes as a person with a history of 5 incarcerations in 24 months, could come close to meeting all the constellation of psycho-social needs with a financial commitment equal to a couple hours of therapy and 30 pills.

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LEGISLATURE: Huffman announces legislation to create mental health jail diversion pilot program

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/tomball/news/legislature-huffman-announces-legislation-to-create-mental-health-jail-diversion/article_723e8c60-8779-11e2-92d5-0019bb2963f4.html


AUSTIN — Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, on Wednesday filed legislation to address the rise in the number of nonviolent people with mental illness in Texas jails.

Specifically, Senate Bill 1185 creates a pilot program to reduce recidivism of individuals with serious mental illness in the Harris County Jail, which is regarded as the state’s largest mental health facility. On any given day, 25 percent of the inmates receive psychotropic medication. Hundreds of inmates with mental problems cycled in and out of Harris County jail five or more times from 2011 to 2012.

“Keeping nonviolent people with mental health issues out of our jails is the fiscally and socially responsible thing to do,” said Huffman. “It costs around $137 per day to keep someone behind bars as opposed to $12 per day for community mental health services. The majority of these individuals in the Harris County Jail never received the services they needed—services that probably would have kept them out of jail in the first place.”

The multi-year pilot program is designed to substantially reduce recidivism by incorporating a comprehensive array of clinical and social support services—easy access to mental health care, chemical dependence services, rehabilitation, and residential housing opportunities. A major benefit of the program is that it takes advantage of Harris County best practices and piggybacks onto existing resources such as crisis intervention and response teams, along with jail-based mental health services.

“As a former prosecutor and judge, I’ve witnessed many stories of heartache involving families with mentally ill loved ones,” Huffman said. “It’s time we erased the stigma of mental illness. It is a medical problem that can be treated by proper care and medicine.”

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