"DEFUNDING" THE CRIMINALITY OF MENTAL ILLNESS BY FUNDING SPECIALIZED POLICE TRAINING: HOW ADDITIONAL TRAINING AND RESOURCES FOR DEALING WITH MENTAL HEALTH WILL BE BENEFICIAL FOR ALL SIDES.

• Author: Ahern, Margaret

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 183 II. HISTORY OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS 185 A. How Jail Became the New Asylum 187 III. POLICE PRACTICES AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS 189 A. Average Police Response and Tactics 189 B. Treatment in the Court System 190 C. Lack of Proper Resources in Jails and Prisons 191 IV. PROMISING PRACTICES 193 A. Police Dispatch Mental Health Training 193 B. Crisis Intervention Teams 194 C. Pre-Arrest Jail Diversion 196 D. Post Booking Jail Diversion 197 E. State Legislative Funding 198 V. OHIO'S CURRENT MENTAL HEALTH RESPONSE IN CJS 200 A. Current Police Training in Ohio 200 B. Problems with Current Police Training in Ohio 202 C. Post Booking Diversion Programs 203 D. Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services 204 VI. RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE OHIO'S MENTAL HEALTH RESPONSE IN CJS 205 A. Obtaining Requiring Funding 205 B. Police Training and Response 206 C. Implementation of Pre-Arrest Diversion Programs 208 VII. CONCLUSION 209 I. INTRODUCTION

Just imagine. A close member of your family, who suffers from mental illness, is going through a crisis. You try everything to calm them down, but nothing you try is seeming to help. You are worried about their safety, and as much as you hate to admit it, your own safety as well. Once you have expended all other options, you call the police for help, though you fear the outcome. Upon police arrival, you see the situation go from bad to worse. The officers are speaking to your loved one in an aggressive manner, escalating the mental crisis. You feel helpless as you see your loved one respond in an aggressive manner, simply as a result of their crisis. As you watch your loved one be handcuffed and driven away in a police car, you feel an immense amount of guilt for your decision to call the police for help.

Unfortunately for loving sister Rulennis Munoz, the fictitious situation described above was her reality on September 13, 2020, but with a far more tragic outcome. (1) Her brother Ricardo was in the midst of a mental health "episode" in connection with his paranoid schizophrenia as a result of his refusal to take his medication. (2) Immensely concerned Rulennis was aware that her brother was in dire need of psychiatric attention, but knew from experience that emergency resources were limited without a judge deeming him a threat to himself or others. (3) Fearing police involvement she called a county crisis intervention line hoping to have Ricardo committed to inpatient treatment, but was unfortunately directed to call police in order to obtain judicial petition to have him involuntarily committed. (4) Ricardo Munoz was dead within minutes of his sisters 911 call requesting aid in getting her mentally ill brother emergency hospital care. (5) Upon police arrival, the paranoid victim armed with a knife warned officers to get back. (6) Officers failure at any attempt of de-escalation lead to the victim making his last toward the officer who responded by firing several gun shots. (7)

The horrific tragedy experienced by the Munoz family is unfortunately not an isolated incident, with strikingly similar facts to the more extensively publicized incident involving Walter Wallace. (8) These incidents highlight the systemic failings of police departments training. The family of Walter Wallace notably declined to press charges against the officers that fatally shot their son 7 times, his mother reasoning that "they were improperly trained and did not have the proper equipment by which to effectuate their job." (9) Traditional police training fails to provide officers with the necessary skills to de-escalate crisis situations similar to what is described above. (10) As a result, individuals with mental illness are vastly overrepresented in the United States justice system, and sixteen times more likely to be killed by police in the United States. (11) The cure for solving these issues is not mysterious. Effective police training involving crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques equip police officers with knowledge and skills that enable them to contrive a more positive outcome. (12) Implementation of such programming promotes both public and officer safety and build community trust in the criminal justice system. (13)

This paper will argue that it is to the benefit of all concerned that more police are trained and available to de-escalate mental health situations and connect mentally ill individuals with proper resources as opposed to jail. (14) In reaching this conclusion, Part I will discuss how mental health issues have steadily increased such that the criminal justice system has been overwhelmed by those issues, including policing criminal activity. Part I will include statistics related to the increase in mental illness in the United States giving a brief history of why mental illness has hit all-time highs in this country. Part II will demonstrate that criminal justice practices are duly incompatible with individuals suffering from severe mental illness, while Part III will analyze the promising practices focused on keeping mentally ill individuals out of the criminal justice system and directed to resources they need.

In Part III, this article will specifically focus on the use of Crisis Intervention teams, and state legislation requiring police de-escalation training and jail diversion resources to create better encounters with police and individuals in mental health crisis. Part IV will discuss Ohio's current response to mental health crisis in the criminal justice system, focusing on the incompatibility of current tactics with what is now the nation's mental health crisis. Finally, Part V will argue for the Ohio legislature to pass a bill requiring police officers to complete increased training programs in de-escalation and crisis intervention. Included will be a further outline of the positive impacts such training would have in decriminalizing mental illness, and on all police interactions.

II: HISTORY OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS

Mental illness has always had a certain stigma attached to it. Historically, families were seldom to admit the existence of anything suggesting a "mental defect," and often hid mentally ill relatives. (15) In the beginning of the 19th century, individuals with severe mental illness were often sent to live in shelters and hospitals due to alleged concern for public safety. (16) These facilities, which were often a place to "house" mentally ill individuals rather than treat them, failed to provide adequate treatment for individuals with severe mental illness. As early as the 1840s, reports of abuse and neglect began to horrify many Americans. (17)

In the 1840's Dorothea Dix challenged the idea that mentally ill individuals could not be cured or helped. (18) She successfully campaigned for the severely mentally ill by lobbying state legislatures and the U.S. Congress, creating the first generation of American mental asylums. (19) By the end of the 19th century mass numbers of mentally ill individuals were admitted to asylums. (20) As a result of the recognition that mental illness could be treatable came a side benefit: the percentage of correctional inmates with severe mental illness dropping to less than 1%. (21)

At the beginning of the 20th Century, institutionalization became the standard of care for individuals. (22) Although these institutions were better than their counterparts of the Nineteenth Century, they were also not ideal. (23) Due to the lack of understanding relating to severe mental illness and lack of proper treatment, isolation from society was believed to be the best course of action. (24) However, following World War II, the institutionalization model began to raise questions as a result of the successful treatment and reintegration of soldiers experiencing psychiatric symptoms and the development of antipsychotic medications. (25) The creation of new therapeutic treatments further supported the proposition that less isolating treatments should replace long-stay psychiatric hospitals. (26) It was believed that community-based care for some would be more humane, more therapeutic, and less expensive. (27)

By the late 1960s, the nation began to focus on deinstitutionalization as a goal for the treatment of the mentally ill. (28) The goal of deinstitutionalization was to create community mental health centers that would provide individuals with the proper resources for community integration. (29) In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Centers Act to provide federal funding to create the infrastructure of community-based mental health services and treatment facilities. (30) Despite the best of intentions, unfortunately, the program failed because it was never adequately funded. (31) The effort, however, led to the closure of many state hospitals. (32) In some respects, this was good for some individuals who were not being benefited by being institutionalized, but this was not true across the board. Hundreds of thousands of severely mentally ill individuals were discharged from hospitals and returned to their communities. (33) Unfortunately, many were released into their communities with no mental health resources or treatment. (34) The number of last resort psychiatric state hospital beds in the United States has fallen to its lowest level on record. (35) A 2016 report indicated that there were only 11.7 state hospital beds per 100,000 population, which is a far cry from 337 per 100,000 in 1955. (36) Families who had no help in how to handle mentally ill loved ones often turned them away, which led to an increase in homelessness and problematic encounters that frequently resulted in interactions with law enforcement. (37)

1. How Jail Became the New Asylum

   The unfortunate reality about mental illness in our society is that it often leads to criminal behavior or violence when left untreated...