NYAPRS Note: In addition to 2 Congressional legislative mental health proposals previously introduced by Reps. Tim Murphy and Eddie Bernice Johnson several weeks ago and one this week by Senators Chris Murphy and Bill Cassidy, a 3rd bill was introduced yesterday by top ranking Senator John Cornyn that has the apparent support of both gun control opponents and mental health advocates. We’ll share a comprehensive summary as all of the details are released.
A Powerful Republican Senator Just Proposed a Gun Bill With Unlikely Support
By Matthew Speiser Business Insider August 5, 2015
US Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — the No. 2-ranking Senate Republican — has proposed a bill that would incentivize states to send more information about residents with serious mental-health problems to the federal background check system for firearm purchasers (NICS).
The bill, called the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act, is designed to “enhance the ability of local communities to identify and treat potentially dangerous, mentally-ill individuals,” Cornyn said in a statement announcing its introduction.
It’s a rare step by a Republican to impose curbs on gun purchases, and it would be aimed at preventing mass shootings like one at a Louisiana movie theater last month and another at a church in South Carolina in June.
Specifically, states that give 90% of their records on people with serious mental issues to NICS will be eligible for a 5% increase in law-enforcement grants. Those grants can then be used to screen for mental problems in prisoners and improve training for law-enforcement officers and others on handling emergencies involving the mentally ill, The Associated Press reports. On the flip side, states that provide less than 90% of that information could see their criminal-justice grants decrease.
Currently, people deemed to be “mentally defective” are barred from NICS from purchasing a firearm, but states are not required to send those records to the FBI-run database, the AP reports.
The bill is backed by the National Rifle Association. Cornyn has an A-plus rating from the the organization, which has stifled multiple gun bills introduced in the wake of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Most famously, the Senate in 2013 failed to pass a measure that would have expanded background checks.
But NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker told the AP that Cornyn’s legislation would take “meaningful steps toward fixing the system and making our communities safer.”
“While potentially dangerous mentally-ill individuals are often known to law enforcement and local officials, gaps in existing law or inadequate resources prevent our communities from taking proactive steps to prevent them from becoming violent,” Cornyn said in his statement.
“This legislation will strengthen programs that promote preventative screening and crisis response training so that we can better understand and treat the factors which may endanger public safety,” Cornyn continued. “By giving our communities the resources necessary to recognize and prevent acts of violence, we not only protect American families, but help those affected by mental illness.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/john-cornyn-gun-bill-nra-2015-8#ixzz3i27HRIxO
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Cornyn Introduces Mental Health and Safe Communities Act
Bill Will Enable Law Enforcement, Local Officials to Better Identify and Treat Potentially Dangerous Mentally-Ill Individuals
August 5, 2015
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) will introduce legislation designed to enhance the ability of local communities to identify and treat potentially dangerous, mentally-ill individuals. The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act will help fix the existing background check system without expanding it, increase the use of treatment-based alternatives for mentally-ill offenders, and improve crisis response and prevention by local officials. The bill is endorsed by a diverse group of organizations, including the National Rifle Association (NRA), the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the National Association of Police Organizations.
“While potentially dangerous mentally-ill individuals are often known to law enforcement and local officials, gaps in existing law or inadequate resources prevent our communities from taking proactive steps to prevent them from becoming violent,” said Sen. Cornyn.
“This legislation will strengthen programs that promote preventative screening and crisis response training so that we can better understand and treat the factors which may endanger public safety,” Sen. Cornyn continued. “By giving our communities the resources necessary to recognize and prevent acts of violence, we not only protect American families, but help those affected by mental illness.”
The bill has been endorsed by key national organizations, including:
- National Rifle Association
- National Alliance on Mental Illness
- National Association of Police Organizations
- American Correctional Association
- American Jail Association
- Council of State Governments
- Treatment Advocacy Center
- National Association of Social Workers
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Mental Health and Safe Communities Act Introduced in the U.S. Senate
By the CSG Justice Center Staff August 5, 2015
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on August 5 introduced the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act of 2015, which enhances and reauthorizes programs that promote collaboration between federal, state and local criminal justice systems to improve responses to people with mental illnesses.
The comprehensive bill focuses additional resources on identifying people with mental illnesses who come into contact the criminal justice system and ensures that responses to these individuals are designed to improve outcomes and increase safety.
“Using our jails to warehouse people with mental illnesses not only burdens our judicial system and law enforcement officers, but it comes at a tremendous cost to our taxpayers,” said Michael Lawlor, undersecretary of Connecticut’s Criminal Justice Policy and Planning and chair of The Council of State Governments Justice Center. “But evidence-based alternatives do exist, and those innovative solutions are coming from our local communities. It’s important that we make sure they are properly supported, and this bill does just that.”
Jails across the nation annually serve an estimated 2 million people with serious mental illnesses, three-quarters of whom also have substance use disorders. The prevalence of people with serious mental illnesses in jails is three to six times higher than for the general population. Once incarcerated, these individuals tend to stay in jail longer, exacerbating their disorder and costing taxpayers more money. Jurisdictions across the nation are looking for help to improve the efficiency of law enforcement, courts, and corrections resources; to increase the likelihood that people in need are linked to effective supervision and treatment; and to make our communities safer.
The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act of 2015 is designed to improve outcomes for people with mental health disorders that come in contact with the criminal justice system through a number of actions, including:
- The authorization of pretrial screening, assessment, and supervision programs to improve outcomes for people with mental illnesses by ensuring they are accurately diagnosed and receive appropriate need-based treatment that focuses on increasing public safety;
- An increase in the use of treatment-based alternatives to incarceration for people with mental illnesses;
- The establishment of a pilot program to determine the effectiveness of diverting eligible offenders from federal prosecution, federal probation, or a federal corrections facility, and placing those eligible people in drug or mental health courts;
- Improvements to reentry programming for people with mental illnesses who are released into the community by authorizing the deployment of Forensic Assertive Community Treatment (FACT) Initiatives, which are designed to ensure that people with mental illnesses receive treatment-based interventions;
- The expansion of specialized law enforcement crisis intervention teams, which respond to and de-escalate mental health crises for federal law enforcement personnel.
The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act of 2015 also includes reauthorization of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA), an essential funding mechanism that supports the use of mental health courts and crisis intervention teams in local law enforcement agencies. The bill would extend MIOTCRA for an additional four years, effectively filling critical gaps in the system, including providing additional resources for veterans’ treatment courts to help those suffering from behavioral or post-traumatic stress disorders. The bill also offers broader training during police academies and orientation as well as increased focus on prison- and jail-based transitional services and reentry programs that can help reduce the likelihood of recidivism.
The legislation has been endorsed by a variety of law enforcement and mental health organizations, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the American Correctional Association, the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, and the American Jail Association.
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Here’s One Prominent Republican’s Plan To Curb Mass Shootings
By Mike DeBonis Washington Post August 5, 2015
After Aurora, after Tucson, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, and most recently, after Lafayette, conservative lawmakers have tended to meet outraged cries for more gun control with a counterproposal: enforce the gun laws already on the books and improve mental health care to identify and treat the next potential madman.
In Congress, however, those proposals have never quite made it into serious legislation that has earning garnered the backing of Republican leadership and key interest groups. But one prominent GOP senator is now taking a stab at reforms that, he says, have the backing of mental health and law enforcement groups and, crucially, the National Rifle Association.
The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act introduced Wednesday by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) does not include even the modest expansion to the national background check system that was at the center of the last major gun control push, which was rejected by the Senate in 2013 amid NRA opposition.
But the bill would clarify the types of mental health records required to be forwarded to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System — an issue raised in the recent shooting in Lafayette, La. — and encourage states to send more information to the database by creating a stick-and-carrot compliance system. It would also encourage “best practices” for responding to mental health crises, including the use of specially trained response teams by federal and local law enforcement agencies.
“This legislation will strengthen programs that promote preventative screening and crisis response training so that we can better understand and treat the factors which may endanger public safety,” Cornyn said in a statement. “By giving our communities the resources necessary to recognize and prevent acts of violence, we not only protect American families, but help those affected by mental illness.”
Although Cornyn’s bill might address the circumstances seen in the Lafayette case, where shooter John Russell Houser had previously had encounters with the mental health system, it would not address the background-check shortcomings exposed int he Charleston, S.C., shootings. There, the accused gunman, Dylann Roof, was allowed to buy a gun, even though pending drug charges should have barred him.
The bill is unlikely to earn many plaudits from Democrats, who generally support more robust measures to expand background checks and otherwise cut down on the availability of firearms to potential mass killers, but the NRA’s backing of Cornyn’s bill gives it a chance to emerge from a Republican Congress. And the fact that Cornyn is the Senate Majority Whip, is a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, and holds an A-plus NRA rating means that the bill could quickly find its way to the center of the congressional agenda — especially if another tragedy forces it there.
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New Bill To Reduce Mass Incarceration Focuses On Mental Illness
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) this week introduced sweeping criminal justice reform legislation aimed at reducing mass incarceration of people with mental illness.
The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act would expand federally proven programs that provide treatment for people with mental illness before they become involved in confrontations with law enforcement, a strategy long advocated by mental health experts, including the Treatment Advocacy Center. The bill also increases training for law enforcement on how to interact with people in a psychiatric crisis and expands data collection on the criminalization of mental illness.
The measure is the most comprehensive proposal to date to deal with the decades’ old problem of warehousing people with mental illness in jails and prisons.
“For too many people who aren’t able to access lifesaving mental health treatment, interaction with the criminal justice system has led to even greater injustice,” said John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center.
“Law enforcement is increasingly on the frontlines of mental health, a position that wastes resources and too often leads to tragic outcomes,” the executive continued. He said as much as twenty percent of the incarcerated population and fifty percent of the people shot and killed by law enforcement each year suffer from a mental illness.
Among many important provisions, the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act would:
- Make assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) eligible for federal funding. AOT provides court-ordered treatment in the community for at-risk people with severe mental illness and has been shown to significantly reduce crime and violence among its target population.
- Fund mental health courts, programs proven to divert qualifying criminal defendants with mental illness from jail into community-based mental health treatment. Nationwide, less than 40% of the U.S. population lives in jurisdictions with mental health courts.
- Promote crisis intervention team training (CIT) for law enforcement. These teams consist of officers who are trained to respond to calls involving mental illness and are consistently found to reduce the arrest and incarceration of individuals with severe mental illness. Nationwide, only 49% of the U.S. population lives in jurisdictions where police departments are using CIT.
- Require reporting on the criminalization of severe mental illness, including reporting on homicides when individuals with mental illness are involved and the cost of treating severe mental illness in the criminal justice system.
The Treatment Advocacy Center supports the efforts of Senator Cornyn to reduce mass incarceration of people with serious mental illness and commends him for providing needed federal leadership in this area.