Advocates raise alarm about rise in mentally ill prisoners

Advocates raise alarm about rise in mentally ill prisoners


By Kate Santich

Sentinel Staff Writer

July 9, 2009
The number of people with mental illness filling Florida's jails and prisons is growing at an alarming rate, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and threatening to exhaust the entire budget for mental-health programs, advocates warned Wednesday.

State Rep. William D. Snyder, R-Stuart, announced a renewed push for legislative changes that would redirect money to community-based programs aimed at stopping the "almost madness" of the current system.

"We know the cost of constantly incarcerating and re-incarcerating the mentally ill is ... huge," said Snyder, whose previous attempt to change the system died in the 2009 legislative session. "And this is a human-rights issue."

The proposed legislation was based on well-researched treatment strategies at pilot initiatives across the state that Snyder said are already showing reduced repeat-arrest rates and increased public safety.

About 9,000 inmates leave Florida prisons each year with "very serious mental illnesses," Leifman said, and without community follow-up treatment, half of them wind up back in prison within 18 months, typically for violating parole. They have become the fastest-growing group of the prison population.

The number of state prison beds serving inmates with mental illnesses is projected to more than double in the next decade from 17,000 to more than 35,000, requiring one new prison to be built each year to house them and costing taxpayers at least $3.6 billion, Leifman said.

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Advocates raise alarm about rise in mentally ill prisoners