Treatment Not Jail; Incarceration Will Fail

I participated in my very first press conference yesterday – about the failure of the jail system in treating the mentally ill. The system doesn’t have the training, experience, or facilities to treat the mentally ill. They belong in hospitals or other health care facilities.

Nancy Speer whose son Ben Warren has been incarcerated in the Santa Barbara jail for eleven months organized the event and spoke out in front of the jail about her son’s treatment and condition – he supposedly has self-mutilated himself and has refused food and water. On two occasions he was sent to a local hospital’s psych ward and rehydrated but not medicated and brought back to psychological balance. Now he is back in jail in a safety cell naked and only covered with a light quilt. Neither his mother nor his psychiatrist is allowed to visit him.

Nancy Speer speaking yesterday 

in front of the Santa Barbara jail

Nancy then introduced me. However, I could not speak from my experience with the inhumane treatment of the mentally ill in the jail system. Paul was jailed one time for two days, and we were lucky to find a sympathetic DA who got a judge to let him go on probation and the promise that he’d take his meds - whether or not he took them is a whole other story told in my memoir Leaving the Hall Light On.

Instead I spoke about how we couldn’t get him hospitalized unless he went of his own accord. When we called the police to take him to hospital Paul acted so normal they didn’t believe he fit the criteria of being a danger to himself or to others. I feel that is a failure of our correctional system as well. They need education about how to deal with the mentally ill. They need to learn that many mentally ill people are masters at hiding behind a normal disguise. They need to learn as I have learned that mentally illness can be very deadly.

Others also spoke and their stories were horrendous: a long-time parole officer told about how a person in a straight jacket was shoved into her office for her to deal with. A woman with bipolar disorder spoke about her treatment in the “hole,” where she was shackled naked to her bed and left to play with her urine.

The theme of the conference was reiterated over and over again:

Treatment not jail

Incarceration will fail

So even though I almost turned back because the traffic getting out of Los Angeles yesterday morning, even after the rush hour, was terrible, I’m glad I went. It fit in with my goal since Paul’s death: to help erase the stigma of mental illness and suicide through raising awareness and education in hopes of saving lives.

Ben Warren needs the right professionals to help keep him alive. Hopefully this press conference will get the authorities to pay attention and make some badly needed changes.

Thoughts about Tucson

I’ve been so down lately. Yesterday it was so bad I actually succumbed to sleeping half the afternoon away. And that is not like me, at least not lately.

Perhaps it was because my ankle was hurting such that I could barely walk up and down the stairs – imagine me side-stepping my way up and down? And I’m the one who never ever complains about aches and pains.

Well this morning the ankle is better. I forced it to be better by working it out at the gym. I think the vibrating power plate helped.

But my mood isn’t better. And when I looked at the lead photo in today’s LA Times I realized why. It’s that tragic shooting in Tucson last Saturday. Today was the first funeral for the victims – the young girl, nine-year old Christina Green. It breaks my heart. I cry when I think about her and how much her family is grieving. I know what it is like to grieve for a dead child, so I am grieving with them. I cry with them. Every time I think of her death, I start crying.

I’m also grieving with the parents of the young shooter. I don’t know anything about them and whether or not they knew something was very wrong with their son and if they did, whether they ever tried to help him. I know the father drove after him that morning when he saw him leave with a big black bag. He must have had some feeling that something was up.

I had bad feelings about my son in the last few days of his life. I felt that he was in danger, but he wasn’t violent against others. He was only violent against himself. And when I spoke with him the night before he took his life, he looked good, calm, and he was very sweet with me. So I felt a little better that night. It turns out that was the last time I ever saw him – either dead or alive.

I also know that if the shooter’s parents tried to get him help, they would have had a hard time of it. My son who was mentally ill was a master of talking himself out of being locked away in a mental hospital. We called the police several times but Paul could make himself look like there was nothing wrong with him. So how could the police justify taking a guy who didn’t look like he was a danger to himself or others in?  It was so frustrating. We knew he needed help, we called for it, and our son knew how to get out of it every time. He only went into the hospital on his own terms. So I suspect the shooter’s parents might have had the same experience as my husband and I in trying to get their son help.

And now they have to live with the fact that their only child, a 22-year old young man – killed six people and wounded many others. They will have to live with the guilt and the grief and the remorse the rest of their lives. I don’t know how they can.

After my son died I didn’t think I could continue to live. But I have. And right now, today, I know it could have been worse. I don’t have to live with the effects of the harm he did to others, only the harm he did to himself and the emotional harm he did to his family and friends. That’s bad enough. It’s just not as bad as what those Tucson parents have to live with. At least not in my mind.