Alliance Note: The criminalization of mental health and substance use challenges has led to a staggering number of people experiencing these challenges cycling in and out of the criminal legal system without any real recovery support. A 2017 Bureau of Justice Statistics report stated 44% of people in jails and 37% of those in prisons had a known history of major mental health challenges.
While Governor Hochul’s much needed and unprecedented $1 Billion investment into mental health services will go a long way in offering more people support before getting entangled with the criminal legal system, there are still many policies we must change and programs we must implement to reduce unnecessary interactions with law enforcement and incarceration.
First, we must create statewide diversion programs for those who are facing incarceration but would benefit more from support services. The proposed Treatment Not Jail legislation would expand mental health and substance use courts throughout the state while also removing the requirement for individuals to plead guilty before entering these agreements. These programs see great success in addressing people’s needs and supporting their recovery efforts in the community.
Second, the state must implement Daniel’s Law styled first responder teams to address mental health, substance use, and trauma related crises without police involvement. These teams would use EMTs, Peers, and other mental health experts to address calls for support in the community. The state currently has a taskforce charged with determining how to implement these teams, but we cannot wait until after 2025 to make these available. We need to have pilot programs throughout the state to help us understand how best to implement the service. The state’s taskforce will be hosting a virtual stakeholder engagement meeting on Monday, November 20th from 3-5pm. You can attend and share your thoughts by using the link for the meeting on the taskforce’s website.
The Alliance will continue to push for the needed changes to criminal justice an mental health services to reduce the number of people unnecessarily incarcerated because the system failed to adequately address their needs.
Another Voice: Hochul Should Mitigate the Harm of the ‘War on Drugs’ and Criminalization of Mental Illness
By Tom Culkin | Buffalo News | November 2, 2023
With details of her historic $1B investment in mental health beginning to take shape and the launch of the Overdose Prevention Task Force, it is clear that Gov. Kathy Hochul is serious about addressing our state’s mental health and substance use crises.
Addiction and mental illness are two topics I know a lot about: I am a recovering addict and suffer from a serious mental health condition. In addition, like so many others who share these challenges, I am a survivor of the New York prison system.
I am sharing my experience to remind lawmakers about the incredible damage caused by the War on Drugs and the criminalization of mental illness, and to remind Gov. Hochul that one of the most promising strategies in mitigating these harmful policies, the Treatment Not Jail Act (S.1976B/A.1263B), builds on the success of a program that started in her hometown.
I struggled with drugs, starting in my teens. Like many addicts, my substance use was closely linked with my mental health issues. By 2012, my addiction had reached crisis-levels, and I was arrested for residential burglaries.
This was a wake-up call that prompted me to get a handle on my issues. I am proud to say I have been clean since those arrests. Unfortunately, it was already too late. Once the criminal legal system has you in its clutches, it is almost impossible to ever return to a healthy, stable life.
I was sentenced to 9 years in state prison and thrust into one of the most hostile environments known to man. Drugs, violence and gangs are pervasive in prison. They are the means that most turn to just to survive. I lost several friends to suicide in prison and seriously contemplated ending my life almost every day of my first year.
Things were worse for those of us with underlying addiction and mental health issues. Prison offers no meaningful treatment. People who struggle with these issues are more prone to abuse and more likely to return to our communities destabilized, mentally gutted, and facing acute overdose risks.
Recently, many communities have begun to move away from this cruel system that funnels those with substance use and mental health issues into our jails. Here in Erie County, Buffalo was the first in the country to create the groundbreaking Opioid Intervention Courts, which aim to treat those in need and break the cycle of recidivism, rather than condemn them to jail.
Far more should be diverted from prison through these types of interventions. The Treatment Not Jail Act would expand access to the kind of treatment that Buffalo pioneered, and make these programs available for people facing mental health issues, as well. Learn from me and thousands of others who were condemned to dungeons of incarceration for their sickness. Prison did not make me better; it nearly killed me.