Stateline Midwest ~ February 2013

Roughly one in four American adults is struggling with a mental illness, according to the National Institute on Mental Health, and half of them are dealing with more than one disorder at the same time. About 20 percent of American children already have had a mental illness at some point in their lives.

CSG Justice Center Training Curriculum Blends Online Learning, Live Activities

Research shows people with mental illnesses and co-occurring substance abuse issues enter local jails three to six times more often than the general population. That creates a challenge for the nation’s criminal courts.

“The cycling of individuals with mental illnesses through our criminal justice system is a critical issue with implications for public safety, health and expenditures, not to mention the lives of millions across the country,” said Ruby Qazilbash, associate deputy director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the U.S. Department of Justice.

For all the talk about mental health services as one of the preventive factors for violence like the Newtown, Conn. school shooting, new federal data give us insight into the barriers to receiving these services. Fifty percent of adults who had an unmet need for mental health care in 2011 said they could not afford the cost of that care.

CSG Director of Health Policy Debra Miller outlines the top five issues for 2013, including Medicaid funding and expanded eligibility, health insurance exchange implementation, mental health and violence prevention, promoting healthy behavior through incentives, and health workforce adequacy.

Health is no doubt a top-of-mind issue for all state policymakers. The implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act goes fully live on January 1, 2014, leaving states to make many policy decisions in 2013.

Shortly after completing a national exam that would certify him as a master counselor in 1995, David Covington took a phone call from a distressed middle-aged man. “He was calling me to basically tell the world goodbye,” said Covington, of Magellan Health Services, which contracts with the Arizona Department of Health to serve as the regional behavioral health authority for Maricopa County. “He had a shotgun and was going to shoot himself.”

Franny Holland knows what it’s like to have to start over. She also knows what it’s like for someone to throw her a life preserver. Holland was serving a prison sentence in California in the late '90s and had been a heroin user for 20 years. After she was released, she said, God gave her exactly what she needed—the world’s meanest probation officer. He sent her to a rehab program for six months, where she discovered she also was bipolar. The Oklahoma Collaborative Mental Health Re-entry Program tries to throw a life preserver to people like Holland. The program is one of the 2012 Innovations Awards winners from The Council of State Governments.

Stateline Midwest

While 5 percent of the general U.S. population is affected by a serious mental illness, the rate in state prisons is much higher: 24 percent among females and 16 percent among males.

More than half the time, these illnesses occur in conjunction with substance abuse — a combination that, when left untreated, can lead to an increased risk of recidivism, according to Hallie Fader-Towe, a program director at The Council of State Governments’ Justice Center. She led a discussion on mental health and the criminal justice system at the Midwestern Legislative Conference Annual Meeting in July.