Colorado will no longer lock up people who are suicidal or in mental health crisis

That is the title of this article I reviewed today. "It soon will be against the law in Colorado to lock people in jail when they are picked up on mental health holds. The legislation signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday also increases funds for a network of crisis-response teams, walk-in mental health treatment centers and transportation to treatment from rural areas. The legislation, which takes effect Aug. 9, was passed in combination with a state human services department budget request to spend $9.5 million in marijuana tax funds, which will pay for two-person mobile crisis teams to intervene in mental health-related police calls, among other new services." Why am writing about Colorado is because I was in jail when I had my breakdown for committing a crime while I was mentally ill. When I first arrived at the jail they had me visit a psychiatrist she took an immediate dislike to me. She told me she did not like me and would not put me on medication. I went back to the cell block six and  for the first time in all the time I did in prison and the county jail I got into a fight. They put me in the infirmary and I did about four months there. I never ordered commissary all the time I was locked up I had money but I thought the jail was trying to get my signature and would not sign for my commissary.  I did not buy cigarettes until I was at the state hospital and on medication. Usually when you go to jail your actually go to the commissary and purchase without your signature. Although because I was in that fight I never went back to general population. When I was at the state hospital I tried to get out and had to meet the board and who was on the board but that psychiatrist and she went out of the room I did not bring up what she did to me because I wanted out. I did not get out.
The article continues: "'Colorado had been one of only six states that allowed putting people who are suicidal or having mental health episodes behind bars. The law, Senate Bill 17-207, bans the use of jails to house people who are a 'danger to themselves or others' but have not committed any crime.
'This bill is a huge step toward removing the stigma associated with mental health crises,' one of the legislation’s sponsors, Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, said in an emailed statement. 'We want people to know that a crisis is not a crime, and that they can get the help they need in times of emergency.'" Why do I feel this is a good idea and practice is because it is hard if you are insane and in jail. I did not get out of the state hospital that time and I said to myself the only way I will get out is myself so I asked to go to the circle program at the time it was the best drug and alcohol treatment center in Colorado. After I did three months there I did about six more months and they release me on conditional release that was five year of UAs and other hoops to get off.
The article ends: "Current state law allows for detainment in a jail for up to 24 hours for a person on a mental health hold. Within a day, the person must go to a health facility for evaluation and treatment, but in rural areas, the nearest mental health center often is hours away. The situation leaves sheriff’s departments with three options: driving the person to another town and leaving the community with one fewer law officer; holding the person in jail; or releasing the person back to the community." I was respected though in jail when I came back to Denver to ask the Judge to release me and I was on medication they other inmates did not mess with me this time because they found out I was from the state hospital and did not mess with me or my things in fact I was on the phone and a guy who stole some cigarettes from me gave them back when I was on the phone and said he was sorry so there is a lot that goes on in jail considering mental illness.

Life

Last week I talked about staying positive with all the news.  I am going to talk about having hope all the time.  This came to me this week when talking to my daughter.  Life has a way of going up and down.  One week or day things might be going good.  Then the next week things might starting happening that bring you down and you just want to give up.  That is what my daughter told me.  You just have to try and stay positive all the time and know that time will pass.  It is the same as if you were locked up time will pass and you will get out.  That is so hard to do wait for time to pass until things get better.  I know I have been locked up and the worse was the state hospital.

I always tried to hurry things up.  In the state hospital I said now I am on this ward I want to go to the Circle program and learn about drug use.  I knew that was something I would have to face sooner or later. I thought if I face it now I can get out sooner.  It still took longer than I had wished.  Throughout all my time in the state hospital taking things slow did teach me a lot that you have to do the work to change yourself.  Why can they not have a speed course and just get through it and you are well.  I wished that many a time.  You just have to be patience and wait and things will change.  They always do nothing ever remains the same.  You have to keep hope that is for all things.
Even with all those years of hurry up and wait in jail or anyplace it still did not give me the patience I need.  It did give me hope that things will change for the better you just have to keep struggling along and you will see that things get better.  I know that people say I don’t have the time to wait for things to change.  I always say what else are going to do in that time might as well make it work or learn something in that time.  I once was facing twenty four years and I took the case to trial it all was going right in the trial until they told me just before lunch they were trying to bring in a witness from the past.
Well that had me worried all during lunch we went to a fast food restaurant and a person I knew from that past kept talking to me and I could not remember her and she came to my house almost every day.  Although my mind was not on lunch it was on the trial and did I make a mistake in going to trial?  When I received the food and went out to the car I remembered the girl and did not know how I forgot her.  Well after lunch my lawyers had been still working and they did not allow that witness in the trial although the judge took a law away from me after lunch that would be crucial to me winning this case.
I was found guilty of one case and acquitted of the other.  Although I would win on appeal because of the law the judge took away from me.  Although I would be in prison for two year until my appeal and would become mentally ill in prison.  I had hoped that I would soon get out and I did not and was not the same person who went in although I won my appeal.  That stress in prison or some stress sooner or later would have set off my mental illness.  If they would have taught me what a mental illness was maybe I would not have had to go to the state hospital and maybe I would have never went to college otherwise.  Through it all you have to have hope that sooner or later things will improve for the better.  Come this April which is also my not drinking anniversary also I will be out for twenty years since I last was locked up.  That came with hope and change of my life.

Staying Positive

That is hard to do with all the news being negative and life just getting a person down in the dumps.  I am doing better than I used to be at staying positive.  I can remember why I started reading positive books when I was going to college and had just been released from the state hospital.  Nothing went right before that when I received my driver’s license at sixteen I had just backed my car into my uncle’s car that he had just fixed up a 1966 Chevy super sport he forgave me but that is how my life went negative. It seemed nothing went right.  I was always in trouble and my uncles would always bail me out.  The news now has a lot of people that do things that are not because they have a mental illness.
If they do have a mental illness they make the news right away.  Delusions I can understand although these people without a mental illness I do not understand what makes them that way.  If you do have a mental illness they stick you in jail where you should not be. As this article says. Which I agree with is why I am putting up the link.  I still get down now days after reading all those positive books years ago.  Life has a way of doing that to a person.  Although I also know that I will get through those bad days and they will look sunny again.  You just have to have the hope that the future will be better again.
I don’t say the affirmation’s like I used to although if times get really tough I will.  I have been locked up before and know that sooner or later you get out and life hopefully will be better.  It takes work though you have to work on yourself.  I know that going to groups and working on your self requires a lot although a person is worth it. As I wrote last week and the week before college was no walk in the park.  I wanted it more than anything I knew I did not want to go back to work construction it would mean driving again and when I did work construction I was drinking and that was before I was twenty one.  I remember my girlfriend saying one night when I came home from work you’re already drunk and you just got off work.
We would get off work and have shots in a parking lot that is how bad it was.  I never want to repeat those days.  I only hit a parked car and it is only by the grace of God that did not hit another car and kill someone.  I was not even nineteen when I hit that parked car. It was the beginning of jail for me and it never ended until I went to the state hospital and changed my life around.  Everyone does not get the time or work to put in too lead two different lives.  I did and I still have compassion for my fellow man when I read they have a mental illness or a substance abuse problem.  I was there and that is all takes to remember and stay positive because I went through a lot.
I can always think of how my life could have been different if I would have stayed in school and went to college before I was middle aged.  My uncles that went through a lot to always bail me out their life might have been better also. I will never know.  Through it all I have to stay positive and help and guide my grandchildren so they do have the chance to go to college when they are supposed to a live a good life.

Mentally Ill Are Often Locked Up In Jails That Can’t Help

That is the title of the article I am writing about click on the link above to read the full story.  “Cook County, Ill., Sheriff Tom Dart walks the halls of his jail every day.  With 10,000 inmates, this place is a small city –except a third of the people here are mentally ill.  Dart has created some of the most innovative programs in the country to handle mentally ill inmates, hiring doctors and psychologists, and training staff.  But if you ask anyone here, even this jail is barely managing. ‘I can’t conceive of anything more ridiculously stupid by government than to do what we’re doing right now.’ Dart says.   Fifty years ago, states began shutting down asylums in favor of community mental health centers.  It was a major policy shift in mental health, allowing patients to go home and live independently.  Over the past decade, though, states have cut billions from their mental health budgets, shuttering clinics across the country.  The result is thousands of mentally ill people funneling in and out of the nation’s jails. In many cases, it has sent the mentally ill right back where they started –locked up in facilities that are ill-equipped to help them.”   For me personally I am glad that they let everyone go.  I hate the state hospital to many games.  People there are not real like they are in prison.  When I first was locked up in the county jail there were not as many homeless as there are today.  Back then the homeless came to jail in the winter to get off the streets they usually received six month sentences.  We knew who they were.

Now mentally ill are put in county jails with the regular population unless they mess up. “It’s staggering’ Elli Petacque Montgomery is the deputy director of mental health policy for the sheriff’s office.  She and her staff screen all of the inmates for mental illness.  It’s not hostile, angry men at the front of cages, bickering with jail staff and pushing each other for more elbow room that interest her.  It’s the men in the corners –men who come to jail and manage, despite the noise and commotion, to fall asleep. I’m kind of curious about this guy in the blue, ‘says Montgomery, pointing to a man sitting quietly on a bench.  Now, is he dazed because he’s on drugs or because the voices in his head are louder than what’s happening around him?’  On this morning, one inmate after another has a problem.  One man tells her he’s going to kill himself because he thinks he’s already dead.  Another guy explains that the voices tell him to hurt people.  To walk in and feel like every other person I’m interviewing [is] mentally ill on any given day, I can’t wrap my brain around it, she says. It’s staggering what we’re dealing with. Most of these men are here on minor offenses. Police have picked them up for small crimes like acting out in front of restaurants, sleeping in abandoned buildings or possessing drugs. They’re people with nowhere to go and nowhere to get medication.  Some of them will stay for a few days; some for a few weeks.  But statistically almost all of them will be back.  While these men are here, the jail’s responsibility is to keep other inmates from hurting them and them from hurting themselves.  But jail staff say what really happens deep inside this jail is a far cry from actual treatment.”  I know that from being in the county jail before I was sent to the state hospital that jail is no place to be mentally ill.  I did a lot of my time that time being in the infirmary and that being in protective custody a place I should have never been.  I had a mental illness when I was there.
The article goes on to say: “Sometimes I would even commit a crime just to make sure I would get my meds, says inmate Joseph DeRiggi.  Here, there’s a little more understanding because they know us: ‘OK, DeRiggi, we know what you’re on. You’re good.’  That’s just the way it is.  But jail is an expensive place to get medication. It costs almost $200 a night to house a mentally ill person here; health clinics cost a fraction of that.  Plus, their cases clog the courts with largely minor offenses.  That lengthens jail time for everyone.  The average stay is now eight days longer than it was a few years ago.  Adding eight days cost county taxpayers $10 million more every year.  He says he understands that money for community health centers is tight. But he says doing it this way is costing more.  Clearly, our society had determined that state-run mental hospitals were abhorrent, that my God, our society cannot tolerate this, we’re much more advanced than that, Dart says. ‘I just find the irony so thick that same society finds it OK to put the same people in jails and prisons.’ But then he shakes his head and changes his mind. ‘ I know people care, ‘ he says, pausing ‘ I don’t think they know’”  How would you know unless you at some time were locked up.  I know that people from the old days were ashamed that they broke down and had a mental illness.  I know it happen to me and one other person I knew in prison my friends were ready to stand by me.  Although I could not face them knowing that I was not strong enough to finish my time even though I was waiting on my appeal.

Denver Homeless

Wow they want to not be able to see our homeless population in Denver. So they are proposing a ban on camping in the city. “The ordinance that would ban unauthorized camping is a bad idea.” There are a lot of mentally ill homeless that would be put in jail. I was in jail when I was mentally ill. It was the worst experience. For me I could not explain what was happening to me. I was in one fight not understanding what was going on. They did not charge me with it, although it should not have happened. That is what happens when you are mentally ill and in a place that you should not be in. There should be a better way to help rather than put them in jail. “Unlike Hungary, a bankrupt nation that still decided to pass a law to fine and imprison their homeless, Denver has options for spending taxpayer dollars in a more supportive way for its most vulnerable people.” Will some of the mentally ill understand what they are going to be doing to them? There is a scramble to find places for the homeless. The city council was in session last night which was Monday night to have a public hearing on the matter. If this passes it will go it to effect on May 29th of this year. Monday in the Denver Post they were having homeless shelter that regularly closes for the summer to stay open. Some homeless just do not like the way of everyday life like the rest of us. It is not a bad thing you just have to understand them and that is hard if you are not mentally ill. “Usually in the springtime, Denver loses about 360 beds used to shelter people in winter- leaving the city’s homeless with only 867 shelter beds for homeless men, women, youths and families through the warmer months.” The people who oppose the ban are saying there is not enough room to house all the homeless. If they do not go in shelter what are they going to do but arrest them as they will be violating the law. Well in today’s Denver post article they passed the camping ban on the first reading. The will have a final vote on May 14th. “The council voted 9-4 in support of the measure that would make unauthorized camping illegal in the city aimed at reducing the numbers of homeless people sleeping on the streets.” It looks like as of now they are going to pass this measure. There were hundreds of people who went to discuss this matter. Proponents of the issue say this is needed. “…wants the law for personal safety for the guests and staff. They are intimidated she said. They are afraid to go out there after dark. One guest was stabbed. We have witnessed break-ins. People are constantly asking what we are doing to end this? That is why I am here.” No one should be afraid to go out to dinner or work. You can understand some of the frustration. Although there should be another way, then criminalizing people for being homeless.

Colorado Lawsuit

I was reading the paper yesterday and I came across this article about a lawsuit inmates made about being in jail and not knowing when they are going to get medication or if they are going to get a mental evaluation so they can use the insanity defense or be incompetent to stand trial. They can wait two months or more when they could make a deal and get out or go to trial. "All people accused of a crime are guaranteed the right to understand the charges against them and participate in their own defense. Those with mental illnesses sometimes require treatment before they meet that level of competency." They have a right even if there are budget cuts. It is a good thing that this was passed. “The hardest thing about the wait is you’re not getting any help” One reason is: “it’s dangerous to sit in jail.” It sounds different than when I was mentally ill and in jail.
When I was there mentally ill for seven months before I was sent to the State Hospital, it was the hardest being there. The psychiatrist told me she was not going to give me medication because she did not like me. This was in the late eighties. There was not that many mentally ill at that time. When I was on medication and went to the county jail, I enjoyed the status that being mentally ill brought me. No one bothered me or my stuff. I know it is different nowadays. "A court compromise announced Monday means hundreds of mentally ill people accused of crimes in Colorado each year could spend less time waiting for state doctors to determine whether they're ready for trial and to provide treatment if they're not." It is the first time in the nation that this has been done.
There are a lot more mentally ill in jail than at that time. I have not been back to jail since that time so I only know what I read. It sounds like this lawsuit brought a good result. They do not have to wait being mentally ill in jail that long. When I was mentally ill for those seven months it was hard. Normally I like visits when I was in jail. Although when I was ill and they came and visited me I never talked. Could not even understand why they were there and it was my birthday. This lawsuit should help a lot of mentally ill people waiting in jail.

Schizophrenic Recovery

I was doing some reading of articles this week and came across a website with the following article about “Schizophrenia Subtypes.” The author of this article has schizophrenia and writes about different subjects of schizophrenia. It is also a place where you can ask questions or comment on article she has written. This article I am talking about today list the five subtypes of schizophrenia and tells their symptoms. It surprised me to learn that paranoid schizophrenics respond to treatment better and have a better outcome. Of course she also mentioned that with all statistics there are exceptions. I have been thinking why do we do better? As I have mentioned in prior blogs, being ill was hell on earth for me. I never want to go through that again! I was sick in jail since April to November, when they finally took me to the State Hospital. I hardly knew anybody while I was there in jail. I had money while I was there. Although I was too paranoid to spend it, I thought if I signed my name to the papers to buy commissary. They would just steal my name. I was a smoker at that time but I did not buy cigarettes for about six of the months while I was there. That is not the only reason it was so bad. I was not of a sound mind to hold a conversation with nobody. I kept to myself and also my delusions. To have paranoia in jail is hard. I know that is one reason I recovered. I would never want to go through that again. Just having delusions was hard enough if I would have heard voices I do not know how hard that would have been.