Funding sought for mental health clinic as alternative to jail, hospitals

May 07--SUNBURY -- Members of the Northumberland County Prison Board are seeking state funding to create a clinic to help with mental illness issues after a joint research effort by Geisinger Medical Center and state lawmakers revealed the closure of state psychiatric facilities has pushed these patients into hospitals and prisons.

The clinic will be tailored to treat mental illnesses, ultimately intervening with potential drug abuse and halting other criminal offenses, prison board chairman Stephen Bridy said at Wednesday's prison board meeting.

The research sought information on people with mental illnesses who are taken to hospitals or prisons instead of specialized mental health facilities where they could receive more beneficial treatment, said Bridy.

"What Geisinger's seeing is patients that shouldn't be in a hospital setting -- they should be in a mental health

setting," he said. "It's the same thing at the hospital level that we're seeing at the prison level."

Prison board member Richard Shoch said around 80 percent of people in county prisons nationwide are suffering from a mental health issue.

"Prison is not the place you deal with that," Shoch said.

Cycle of trouble

People with mental illnesses, such as depression, are turning to drugs to cope instead of receiving adequate treatment, said Bridy. After these people are arrested for their drug use, they then have difficulty finding employment because of their criminal records. This compounds their depression and encourages additional drug use, creating a cycle, he said, and some end up selling drugs to earn a living.

Instead of continuing to place these people in prison, Bridy hopes to create a small satellite clinic in the Shamokin area designed to treat mental illnesses. The site would be modeled after a treatment system in North Carolina that has shown success in rehabilitating people. He said he has visited this type of facility and is working on obtaining state money to fund the clinic alongside a group of people that include Rick Catino, of the Addiction Help Center in the Mount Carmel area.

A recent survey of county prisoners revealed 44 out of 122 men in SCI-Coal Township and 19 out of 21 women in SCI-Muncy were on some type of psychotropic drugs, Bridy said, calling the statistics "super alarming."

The clinic would be designed to stop the drug abuse cycle in its earliest stages by preventing people from using or abusing drugs as a way to manage mental illnesses. By teaching people to cope with these illnesses, Bridy said, the clinic would also curb other crimes, like domestic abuse.

"It will help increase the number of empty beds at the hospitals," said Bridy, "(and decrease) inmates at the prison and reduce the recidivism rate."

Bridy said the board is already in the process of creating a part-time counselor position, now required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act, to review all incoming county inmates using a set of criteria to determine if he or she is at risk for suicide or to be an aggressor or a victim in the prison population.

"I think it's a step in the right direction," said Bridy.

House arrest fee help

The prison board also discussed creating a program to help offenders who qualify for house arrest but can't afford the fees.

Bridy said these offenders are being incarcerated at a much higher cost than if the county would accept less than the full payment for house arrest and foot the remainder of the bill.

The average cost to keep a person on house arrest for a month is about $100, said chief adult probation officer Jim Cortelyou. The cost could increase if the person has equipment, such as an alcohol sensor bracelet, which ups the charges by $12 per day.

To offset the cost to the county, adult probation currently charges a person on house arrest $15 per day, averaging $450 per month.

But the cost to house a prisoner is around $60 per day, or $1,800 per month.

Controller Chris Grayson, Sheriff Robert Wolfe and Shoch appeared in concurrence with Bridy to contemplate a new house arrest fee program. District Attorney Ann Targonski and Commissioner Vinny Clausi were absent from the meeting.

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