We re taking a giant step backward 100 years, says Susan Siemer, president and CEO of the Mental Health Association of Northeast Florida, a local advocacy group and patient resource. We re incarcerating people for being mentally ill. In Florida, where the prison industry is booming, the problem is especially serious. Mentally ill individuals in jail and prison outnumber those in state mental hospitals by nearly five to one. Sadly, incarceration is a much cheaper option.
Prisons are also a more politically popular expenditure than mental hospitals.
While state psych wards have become nearly extinct, inmate populations have tripled in the past 20 years. Correctional spending in the last decade increased at twice the rate of state education spending and, according to the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C., total state spending for treatment of the seriously mentally ill is one third less now than in the 50s. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill has been fighting what it calls the criminalization of mental illness, and arguing for up-front investment instead of back end costs. It is a subject that may finally be getting much deserved attention. After years of lobbying by NAMI and other mental health groups, the Florida Legislature in 1999 created The Florida Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse.