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| California County Supervisor Considers Jail Alteration for Mentally Ill |
| By Ventura County Star |
| Published: 01/13/2003 |
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In response to the growing number of mentally ill being incarcerated, Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn is considering a radical plan: making room in the county's Todd Road Jail for a locked mental health ward where the mentally ill would get medication, education and treatment. 'It's a health issue, not a criminal issue,' Flynn said. 'They should be getting treatment.' A 26-year veteran of the Board of Supervisors, Flynn said he's seen too many mothers and fathers cry as their mentally ill sons and daughters are jailed. He's worked to get housing for mentally ill and led the successful fight to build a psychiatric hospital in Ventura. He considers restructuring the county's Santa Paula jail a logical next step. Flynn said there's room in the jail to wall off an area devoted to the mentally ill. As he sees it, inmates who have a history of mental-health issues could be put directly into the mental health facility. They would remain there while their condition stabilized and they learned the importance of taking their medication. They would be released with the support of mental health workers. He would like to see the same thing at the juvenile detention facility now being built. Flynn said that with the state's budget crisis, the plan may be a hard sell. But he doesn't expect the overall cost of dealing with the mentally ill to increase. 'If you've got people going to jail anyway, 15 percent who are mentally ill. It's going to cost them money to go through the legal criminal justice system ... expert witnesses, psychiatrists, public defenders,' Flynn said. 'Rather than spending money on the criminal justice system, you would spend money on a better way to treat people.' |
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