Report Demands Maine Prisons Change to Help Mentally Ill

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By Blethen Maine Newspapers

Published: 10/03/2002

The death of 17 prisoners in the past five years shows that mental health services in Maine jails and prisons have deteriorated and need a major overhaul, according to a report issued by advocates for the mentally ill.
The report calls on state officials and legislators to overcome budget shortfalls and the public distaste for criminal offenders, and to increase the funding, training and cooperation needed to treat sick prisoners and keep them out of jail to begin with.
'Any other publicly funded and publicly governed institution in Maine where Maine citizens are housed and for whom government is responsible, that had 17 deaths would be investigated and possibly lose its license,' says the report prepared by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Maine.
Of those that died, 14 committed suicide and the others died from issues associated with drugs, alcohol and illness. Eight have died since January.
'Unfortunately, jails and prisons are the largest providers of mental health services in the nation and the least trained, the least equipped and the most under-resourced. This must change,' said the report.
Many of the 25 to 35 percent of Maine prisoners who have mental illness are in jail because of behavior related to that illness, behavior which is better addressed through treatment rather than punishment, advocates say. Even intensive treatment in the community costs less than half the $100 per day it can cost to keep someone incarcerated.
The report stresses the need for providing mental health services in the community. But it also says such resources have been slow to materialize since the state scaled back widespread hospitalization for the mentally ill and therefore other steps need to be taken to address the problem.
'The fact that Maine's correctional facilities are the largest providers of mental health services in Maine documents the failure of deinstitutionalization and the failure of the state to meet its promise to people with mental illness and their families,' the report said.

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