HCBA Lawyer Magazine Vol. 29, No. 1 | Page 14

F R O M
T H E
S T A T E
A T T O R N E Y
An d re w H. Wa r re n - St at e At t o r n ey fo r t h e T h i r t e e n t h Ju d i c i a l Ci rc u i t
A p uBliC H eAltH A pproACH
to M entAllY i ll o ffenders
I
the critical stage of dealing with mentally ill community members
occurs before they end up in the courtroom.
magine being a patient
with a history of
cardiovascular disease.
You suddenly experience
chest pains and are
rushed to the nearest hospital,
admitted, and taken into the
emergency room … where you
are greeted by a prosecutor, a
defense attorney, and a judge. It
is preposterous to consider this
happening, but it approximates
an everyday occurrence across
the country — only the patients
are defendants suffering not from
heart disease, but rather from
mental illness.
Mental illness is a disease — a diagnosable and
treatable disease. Yet for far too long, we have been
treating mental health as a criminal justice issue.
Despite the best efforts of prosecutors, judges, and law
enforcement, our current mental health system —
which functions largely within the criminal justice
system — is antiquated, ineffective, and does not reflect
modern medicine.
© Can Stock Photo / andreykuzmin
The prevalence of mentally
ill 1 defendants in the criminal
justice system is staggering. An
estimated 56 percent of state
prison inmates and 64 percent
of jail inmates are mentally ill.
Approximately 20 percent of jail
inmates and 25 percent of
prison inmates suffer from serious
mental illness. 2 Incarcerated
individuals are three to six times
more likely to have serious
mental health disorders than the
general population. 3 Not only
do prisons and jails house
many mentally ill inmates, they
house most of the mentally ill.
In Florida, a person with serious mental illness
is nearly five times more likely to be incarcerated
than hospitalized. 4
Using the criminal justice system to treat mental
illness yields worse outcomes at a significant cost.
Continued on page 13
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12
SEPT - OCT 2018
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HCBA LAWYER