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Inmates and mental illness

The Daily Reflector - 11/26/2016

The Winston-Salem Journal

The last place a person with mental illness needs to be is in jail. A national initiative being honed in Forsyth County should make a difference.

We've known for some time that our jails receive far too many inmates who suffer from mental illness or problems related to their mental illness, which may actually be contributing factors to their incarceration — and where they're less likely to receive the resources they need to recover and return to productive lives.

In 2015, about 18 percent of new jail intakes were found to have mental-health issues.

So we're grateful for the assistance of Forsyth County's Stepping Up Initiative, part of a national program to provide programming and operation assistance to Forsyth County jail inmates who suffer from mental illness.

The first beneficiaries of the programming will be less than 100 female inmates who have had chronic mental illness linked with substance abuse problems. Many of them have had past experiences with hospitalization or rehab. The program is voluntary.

Program administrators will be developing practices and strategies to reduce the numbers of inmates with mental illness. As they calibrate the program, it can be adapted for more inmates.

Participation won't shorten any sentence, but it's likely to help curtail repeat offenses and help repair damaged lives. The assistance doesn't end with a prisoner's release, but will continue as she integrates back into life.

Such an effort is long overdue. Jails are often ill-prepared to deal with people with mental illnesses — and those people are often ill-prepared for jail.

Keeping people with mental illness out of jail helps them to have productive lives and reduces the amount we spend on their confinement.