Stop Putting Sick Children in Jail: Congressional Investigative Report Released; NAMI Testimony Calls for End to National Scandal
Press Release Source: NAMI
Wednesday July 7, 10:00 am ET

ARLINGTON, Va., July 7 /PRNewswire/ -- NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) today condemned state and local governments that warehouse children and adolescents with mental illnesses in the juvenile justice system, simply because adequate treatment and services in their communities are unavailable.
"We are spending money in all the wrong places," declared NAMI Maine executive director Carol Carothers, testifying on behalf of the national organization before a hearing of the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on a special Congressional investigative report on the scandal.

NAMI's full testimony is available on-line at http://www.nami.org/kidsjails.

"Youth with mental illnesses are being held in juvenile detention for the sole purpose of awaiting mental health treatment. It is hard to imagine a worse place to house a child. Surely we would not dream of placing a child with another serious illness, like cancer, in a juvenile detention center to await a hospital bed or community-based system."

In Maine, Carothers noted, 10-year-old children may be housed with 20- year-olds, where they are vulnerable to physical or sexual assaults. Keeping children in the community, however, leads to better outcomes and saves taxpayer dollars: $30,000 to provide intensive in-home services for a family for one year, compared to $80,000 to lock a child in a detention center.

In criminal justice settings, symptoms of mental illnesses are misinterpreted as disobedience, defiance, or threats. Well-meaning, but poorly-trained corrections officers respond with anger, discipline or force. Minor incidents escalate. Risks of harm increase. Many techniques used in correctional settings -- like prolonged isolation and restraints -- actually worsen symptoms, leading to greater acting out and self-harm, through self- mutilation or suicide.

The Congressional investigative report documents "a national crisis," Carothers said resulting in part from reduction or elimination of mental health services as states struggle to balance budgets. However, money cut from such services is not saved. "Instead it will be shifted to corrections budgets, a waste of the taxpayer's money."

Carothers was one of 10 persons nationwide recently honored with a $120,000 award from the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Program for her efforts to reform the mental health and criminal justice systems in Maine.

Source: NAMI